Glamping

The art of camping and not being miserable about it.

I kid, I love camping. I just REALLY like modern conveniences too!

The MeetUp group I’m a part of decided it would be fun for a group of 14 of us strangers to rent 2 cabins in the woods and have a Friendsgiving.

So we all paypal’d our $22 and off to Berry Creek Cabins we went, with a bunch of strangers. not creepy at all! There was going to be food and wine, honestly, how horrible could it be?

It was also only about an hour out of New Orleans, so the drive wasn’t terrible, minus the 1 mile of gravel/dirt/ potholed road. It rained all Saturday but luckily we all brought umbrellas to get to our home for the night. We originally planned to have 2 cabins right next to each other, but I guess one was booked before we secured it, so there was a small cabin that slept 5 and the “loft cabin” that slept 9. We were expecing something a little bit larger…. and more… cabin-ey. But whatever.

We read through some of the…. questionable policies in the binder to start.

Got it… don’t burn down the deck. There goes your security deposit.

Bathing Suits ONLY…. or not?! THANKS DAVE.

We started drinking immediately. Nothing to kill the awkward silence like a bunch of bumbling drunks! There wasn’t any phone signal, and it took us about 2 hours to realize there was free wifi, but we finally got in touch with the other cabin and convinced them to come to the loft so we could start eating – they had wanted to eat outside but we vetoed that pretty hard 1.) it was raining 2.) we didn’t want to carry all the food out & back.

And the one thing we forgot? A Wine bottle opener…. no worries, we were among a couple engineers, they had it figured out… (until the night continued and then some unlucky winos ended up with cork in their wine) We had already killed probably 5 bottles of wine by the time cabin 2 arrived at 7pm (there was still cooking to be done by some). We also had played multiple rounds of Taboo and Heads Up. (shoutout to the best game EVER Ellen Degeneres)

As the “Wine Fairy” poured healthy glasses for everyone, we set up the potluck and went to town.

Red Salad & Macaroni Salad were my contribution, which went over very well. I was able to take home some leftovers too 🙂 (not like I didn’t make a double batch and keep some of it home anyway…..)

After we all stuffed our faces and got seconds, another game of Kings started. There was lots of laughing, plenty of stories, and probably too much fun for one cabin to handle. The rain had let up a little bit, and we were told some of the other cabins were a bunch former frat house guys so over to the “deck” we went. That’s also were the hot tub was so we squeezed as many of us in as possible.

Again, more stories, experiences, and life lessons were shared and we all became very close friends very fast. By the time 11pm rolled around I was feeling like an old woman and headed back to the loft for bed. See, I’ve learned my lesson when in a group – be the first one to go to bed, that way you actually GET a bed. A few of us wandered back and claimed beds and then continued chatting… somehow we got on our favorite 90s shows and holy moly was that a blast from the past.