On Top Of Old Smokey (Part 4)

Day 2 Saturday (Part 3)

3 pm we made it down the mountain. I still hadn't gotten any messages from my sister in law to say that they had arrived and so we went to take a few pictures of a nearby waterfall. Little did we know that my phone was out of service and the entire time we were photo shooting. Shane Beki and the kids were in the Wal-Mart parking lot for nearly an hour, calling nearby campgrounds trying to find out where we were. We did finally meet up with them, after we randomly passed their van on the road.
The 1st thing the kids wanted to do was go climb a mountain... We decided to have dinner instead of hiking in the dark. Hot dogs, apples, peanut butter filled pretzels, hot chocolate, and s-mores. The only injury of the night was Josiah cutting his finger with a pocket knife trying to open Sunny's trail mix, which incidentally didn't require a knife to open it in the first place. It was a mere flesh wound and we were able to proceed with dinner and the rest of the evening. Josiah and Shiloh, (the two oldest) insisted that we tell scary stories as we sat by the fire. Its funny how some things never change. Josiah told a story that had been circulated among my friends 13 years ago at least. Sunny (the 4 year old) told a story too. It didn't make a whole lot of sense, I think it was actually a story about her and her doll. Adorable. I think its pretty safe to say that the stories were unsuccessful as far as making anyone really afraid. What was genuinely creepy though, was the sounds of Frankenstein that permeated the campground, as the community movie played from the amphitheater not 300 yards away from where we were situated. Then there were the wild animal noises in the middle of the night. Owls, raccoon fights, other unexplained noises. Honestly I think those noises concerned Phil and I more than they did the kids. They took the cold unfamiliar night like champs.
For breakfast I had found a recipe for bacon and eggs in a paper bag. According to this recipe, you line the bottom of a paper lunch bag with bacon, and crack an egg on top. Then you hang your bag on a skewer over the fire to cook. ... sounds sketchy right? but I honestly couldn't pass up the opportunity to try it. The whole ordeal took about 20 minutes. It really wasn't cooking hanging on the skewer and so I sat the bag on some coals. It actually started cooking! For 10 minutes or so a slow but steady cooking process was occurring. Then in an instant, just like that, the entire bag went up in flames. ...surprise, but not really, cause what would you expect a paper bag to do in a bonfire? I would really like to know how this actually worked for someone well enough for them to recommend it to someone else. (note to self: not everything you find online is worth your time)
While all of this was going on, the kids were enjoying roasting individual pieces of bacon over the fire on their skewers.
After all the bacons had been individually roasted and consumed, and i had cooked eggs for everyone in a real non-flammable pan. We set out on a mountain waterfall safari.