the great outdoors

My husband grew up camping. (Though I've never seen him do it, he's the type who could probably rub two sticks together and make a fire.) In recent years, he has gotten back into it with our kids, but truth be told, I've been apprehensive about going. Though I love the outdoors, and got my feet muddy at my share of Dead shows back in the day, I am a city girl at heart who has never been drawn to "roughing it."

As it turns out though, my kids inherited the camping gene as well (it may be their favorite activity), and thus recently, in what felt going-in like an act of motherly duty, I relented and agreed the time had come for me to camp.

This past weekend, along with my friend Minnie and her family, we packed our cars with tents, sleeping bags, surfboards, and coolers of food, and set out for rural North Santa Barbara County. I had assumed that inviting another city girl with me would somehow make the whole enterprise more palatable, since I would have someone to relate/complain to. Though I got that wrong, since it turns out that Minnie is an experienced and capable camper--it actually did not matter because we (yes - myself included) had an amazing time.

As we all know, there's something freeing about being away from city life.  It's just easy to forget sometimes.  The lack of cell phone reception and even a shower was rendered quite irrelevant in the face of nature's beauty. We awoke to the sun's first rays casting shadows of rustling willows on our tent, swam with seals in the ocean, came across hawks, cows and wild horses in the surrounding pastures, and nearly wandered into a rattlesnake nest. We also survived gale force winds that violently battered our tent during the night - at one point I thought we'd get swept up into the air like a flying saucer.

But we also did some very civilized things, like made scrambled eggs with goat cheese on our Coleman grill, and we also surfed and paddle boarded. Since this my fashion blog I would be remiss if I did not mention that somehow through it all, Minnie looked chic and perfectly in her element, layering a James Perse tank with a cozy Marc Jacobs sweater, and at night with a puffy Patagonia jacket!

I could go on and on about my voyage into the wilderness but I'd rather not, lest my husband happily forget how much I still enjoy a comfy hotel bed.