A nephew, Benson, wanted to celebrate his birthday via camping this year. He invited Jason and I to join him, along with a few members of his immediate family. So, we went on a late fall outing to Rockport Reservoir in celebration of this significant occasion. Chatting, crepe munching, hiking, and wind battling ensued.
Although I know my nephew loves me, I also know this invitation was extended in part to take advantage of my planning skills. Finding season-appropriate campsites at superb locations is a forte of mine, one that Benson wanted to utilize. I did not fail him. I reserved us a secluded spot at Rockport Reservoir, a great low-altitude option for the cool weather.
We spent our evening hours eating tinfoil dinners and conversing around the campfire. Sometime well after midnight, we finally crawled into our tents, minivans, and hammocks for the night just as the wind was preparing to begin a gusty jig.
The next morning, I made birthday crepes. No nephew of mine is having yogurt for breakfast on his birthday if I can help it. Creating crepes wasn’t the easiest task given our limited supplies and the limitless breeze. They turned out perfectly edible despite the wind’s many efforts to add leaves to the batter.
After some rock skipping, we broke camp and attempted, unsuccessfully, to find a trail to a row of cliffs above the water. Following that failure, we headed to Oakley for a hike up Seymour Canyon. We only trekked 3.5 miles on this path in total, but sections were drastically steep, so not all members of our group made it the whole way. Still, we had fun and earned the giant hamburgers we consumed at Billy Blanco’s on the way home.
Many years from now, Benson will look back to the days when getting older felt like an accomplishment. Somewhere in that nostalgic collage, he will recollect eating birthday crepes around a campfire with some eccentric relatives. I’m proud that the crepes and eccentricity etched in that memory will be mine.