This last weekend was so much fun!

Somehow or other, I convinced Nils to go camping with me one more time before it got too cold to be outside. We hitched up my camper to his truck, put Amber in the truck, and away we went up to the property my grandmother deeded to me earlier in the year. It’s very out-of-the-way and takes a while to get there, but it’s always a good place to be: quiet, restful and secluded if you want to get away from it all.

We got there on Thursday afternoon and set up the camper. We tied Amber out on a long lead so that she would not get underfoot and not run off. She was pretty well trained, but was still young enough that she might get distracted by a squirrel or something and lose her way back in the unfamiliar territory.

I decided that when the weekend was over we’d put the camper into the barn and lock it up until next spring. I think the barn is over some kind of thermal vent because nothing ever freezes there. It gets cold, but not freezing. I’d been up there a couple of times with Grandma and Grandpa in the winter, and there was a line, about four feet wide, going from near the creek, through the barn, and off the property where the snow wouldn’t stick and grass grew nearly all year long.

I told Nils that the rule up here was ‘clothing optional’ and I proceeded to get naked. He did, too, and we explored the meadow and the creek with Amber bounding along ahead of us. The creek itself was a little low and our swimming hole was pretty shallow, but it was deep enough for us to splash around a little.

We’d gotten there around 2 PM, and around 5, Nils said he wanted to do some painting. There weren’t a lot of wildflowers blooming since it was so late in the year, but there were a few and the trees were starting to turn and drop some leaves. Nils posed me lying in some leaves next to the creek with some bushes that were turning color as part of the background.

He told me not to move, as the light was just about perfect, what he called the ‘golden hour.’ He staked Amber nearby so she could watch, but couldn’t wander.

He explained, as he was sketching in the outlines, that the ‘golden hour’ was that time when the sun was lowest in the sky and gave everything a golden hue. Photographers really liked it, he said, because they could capture a bunch of really nice pictures in a relatively short period of time. Painters, he said, had to work quickly to get it all down on canvas. He did sketch quickly and then got to using his brushes.

As the sun started going down, I started getting a little chilled and my nipples started to stand up from the chilliness. There wasn’t much of a breeze, thank goodness, but, in the fall, without the sun to keep things warm, the temperatures start to fall quickly. Thankfully, without the proper light, Nils couldn’t continue, so he called a halt for the night.

I scampered back to the camper and turned on the oven. I was going to cook us up a nice little casserole that I had prepared at home and brought in the cooler. Baking the casserole in the oven would cook it and, at the same time, warm the little camper up nicely. Later we could just cuddle under the blankets for warmth.

Grandpa had one of those old gas lanterns for the camper, but I had left that in the barn. I had purchased an LED camp light that gave off plenty of light in the small camper. We were able to see very well; in fact, I had to turn the brightness down a little. There was a nice little hook at the highest part of the camper, so it lit up the whole camper very well.

About an hour later, the casserole was done. I got out some plates and flatware, along with a couple of glasses. I got into the cooler and pulled out some wine and asked Nils to pour while I dished up the food. The little table in the center of the camper was crowded, and, with Amber lying right there, the whole camper seemed crowded to Nils, but to me it was just very cozy.

After dinner, I heated some water on the stove to do the dishes. When it was hot, I divided it into two containers, one in which I had poured some cold water, and the other, for rinsing the dishes, I put in the hot water undiluted. Nils just watched as I did the dishes, commenting on how much he liked the little area up here. He had put his painting and paints and brushes in the barn, so I couldn’t see what he’d done so far, but that didn’t really bother me too much because he wouldn’t let any model see their picture until it was done. Still, I was very curious about it.

We both put on some clothes; Nils was in his favorite sweatpants and sweatshirt. I was in an oversized sweater that kept falling off my shoulder. There was a fire ring and we had found some dry wood in the barn, so it was no problem to get a nice fire started in it. Nils got the camp chairs from the truck and I found a couple of camping forks, and we made some s’mores for our dessert. It certainly brought back nice memories for me.

Still, it was getting later and chillier. I looked up at the sky as I was putting out the fire and saw that there were some clouds rolling in. The wind had picked up, too. Away off in the distance, I even saw some lightning.

Just as we got ourselves into the camper, a big wind came up and suddenly, a bolt of lightning hit something nearby and the thunder rolled as if right on top of us. I think I screamed a little and Nils was holding me. Amber was against my leg shivering.

I got myself under control. I had been through storms up here before and knew that most of the storms were really just squall lines passing through quickly. I knelt down, petting Amber to calm her down. Soon, it was just rain with a more distant rumble of thunder. I suggested it was time to sleep, and Nils agreed. He stripped and got into bed first and I followed. Soon, the patter of the rain lulled all three of us into a nice slumber.

The next morning the sun was shining brightly and Amber was whining to be let out to do her business. The wind was blowing gently from the south and things had warmed up considerably even though it was still quite early. The humidity was certainly up.

When I opened the door to the trailer I was surprised to see that most of the meadow was under water! Amber made her way to a little hillock and relieved herself and just stood there looking around. I didn’t want her to wander off, so I called to her to come. She looked at the water through which she had just waded and ignored me.

Well, I wasn’t going to let some mutt disobey me! I flung the camper door wide open and got down into the water and started wading over to her. I surveyed the area and realized that the creek had overflowed. That must have been some storm last night. With the exception of the one big roll of thunder and the crack of the lighting, it had seemed like such a gentle rain.

I got Amber and pulled on her collar. With that, she must have realized that I wasn’t going to let her wander around, so she started trotting back to the camper. She lifted her feet at every step trying to keep them out of the water and I laughed at her antics. Nils, standing in the doorway to the camper, was laughing, too.