Sunday morning again started off late; we had dozed off watching Hera Phari the previous night, and camping was the only major agenda so no one was in a rush. Till about 12 noon, everyone was kind of in “okay, lets get ready” mode but no one was really doing anything to accomplish that goal! :D

Finally when the time came to actually make the move, things got rushed up a bit — there was complete chaos all around, and we had a hard time making sure that we had indeed packed up everything we needed. We had already done most of the camping shopping the previous night from Ralphs (including firewood, matchsticks, tissue, flashlights and batteries etc). There were a few more things we needed to pick up before leaving so we went to Trader’s Joe and Ralphs again.

We finally got moving on at around 2:30 or so. The camping site at lake Morena (near Mt. Laguna) is about 63 miles south east of San Diego. The weather was nice and sunny, though a bit warm for my taste. The journey was mostly uneventful. As we approached the camping site, it became clear that it wouldn’t be all that we had expected — for most part, the Lake had dried up, leaving behind a small pond of sorts. The camping grounds were hot and dry and the soil was coming loose in places; the trees and brush were all thorny and dried up — in general the feeling was arid.

But we weren’t put off by all that since it was our first camping experience. It was a bit disappointing to see so many people though — the camp was especially full because of 4th of july weekend, and I was expecting that each campsite will be kind of isolated from other campsites. Basically we were missing that “in the wild” feeling since civilization was all around us! Setting up the tent was a challenge in itself, and it was really cool to see it when we were finally done.

After that, we headed off towards our first hike towards the lake. The area around the lake was almost quick-sandish and we had a bit of fun playing frisbee around there. PSD had set up the next “lakshya” to be a hill top on the other side of the camp, so we set out for that one after we were done with the lake. Unfortunately, that hike proved not to be so easy since there wasn’t a proper trail and we had to make our way around boulders and thorny bushes. We didn’t make it to the top, but we did reach a place with a view and made a halt there.

By the time we got back it was almost 8. After cleaning ourselves up, we started making preparations for dinner. It was a bit weird since everyone around us was already done with dinner and people were settling down around their fires for story telling kind of things. And there we were, firing off whistle after whistle from our pressure cooker! It was awkward and funny at the same time, and I was a bit nervous that some ranger would come and shoo us off the camping grounds for making so much noise! :D

Anyhow, things went pretty well. The pakoras didn’t come out as well as we had expected, but the dal makhani and aloo gobhi turned out to be darned good, and we ate our hearts fill. The sabzi took an unexpectedly long time to cook though, and by the time we cleaned up it was almost 11. All the lights on the camping grounds had been turned down, so we took a walk in the moonlight — that was really great.

The plan for UNO was abandoned in favor of a late night gulla session. But it was mostly PSD and myself talking; RJ was in his “listening” mode and Asim was in some “contemplate/quiet” mode. We did have some interesting discussions though, and when we finally tucked into bed, it was almost 3 in the morning. There was unanimous consensus that we had a great time in camping and that we should do this more often. Next time around, though, I’m going to find a more lush, green and quiet camping site :)