Glamourous Camping = Glamping

One thing my dad always told us was that when he married my mom he made a promise to her father that he would show her as much of the world as possible. When my sister and I came along that promise then extended to us, and I have to say that he – both of my parents, actually – have held true to their word. They’ve shown us a lot of this beautiful world and even more of this great nation. A more thankful two daughters they could not find!

However.

I do very vividly remember a time when all my dad wanted to do was take us girls camping. I think we were looking at a place in Colorado, a place I would later call home for 4 years, but all I could think of was that IF we went camping then we would SURELY be eaten by bears.

YES. BEARS.

Since my unfounded fears were getting me nowhere I enlisted the help of my baby sister, at which point my parents’ travel plans were at the mercy of two hysterical pre-teen daughters. Long story short we ended up finding a different place to travel that year, and the question of camping never came up again.

Until I moved to Colorado.

During our time in Denver we went camping 3 times, although Nate went many more times than that, and I soon found out that those dreaded bears had no interest in me, our campsite, or the food that we hid in our cars at night. In fact, it was really fun! And minus the lack of showering (which is very much ironic since most days I can’t tell you the last time I showered…please don’t leave me…) I found that camping with a strong and manly husband is really the way to go.

So now that I’ve set the stage, let’s talk about what I did 2 weeks ago…GLAMPING. A.K.A. glamorous camping.

Y’all, it was darling. Minus the sweaty mess that was my entire head and face. But beautiful, really.

The way I see it there are many styles of glamping: there’s Mary Jane style (GORGEOUS), Sandy style, and GlampingAR style, which was our glamping of choice. High up on Petit Jean Mountain are some beautiful yurts, complete with canoes and bunk beads. When you gather together 6 (including myself) bloggers, most of which are WAY fancier than yours truly, to decorate said yurt the end result is something you find in beautiful magazines. Although I’ll be honest: I only contributed to my bed and the meal situations. All of the other pretty things belonged to the other gals.

(Know what? My sheets? They were Lightning McQueen sheets. I’m so cool…)

After decorating our beautiful little campsite we ate dinner and slumbered peacefully until the next day, when I was able to go hiking for the first time in a long time.

Side note: I have a LOT of people ask me if I miss Colorado. And I do, really, but more than anything I miss the friends we have out there. The state itself is amazing, no doubt, but Arkansas is stunning beyond words and has a lot of the same activities that I always loved to do in Colorado. #winning

Anyway, hiking was so good for the soul. I love that my body has the ability to do it!

After hiking we were blessed to spend some time with Fern, a master gardener (in her mid-80’s!) who gave us amazing tours of her garden and fantastic tips for our own gardens, and sent us away with massive bouquets. We used her gorgeous flowers to decorate our site even more because y’all? WE HAD A PHOTO SHOOT THERE THAT EVENING! How fun, right?!

The evening was so fun, and I was blessed by so much laughter and fellowship with some dear friends. And while I was definitely beyond in need of a shower (note: the site actually had a shower, I was just lazy), I found myself going through glamping withdrawals the next week. I’m such a homebody sometimes, but this weekend was so needed for me to just get out of the house and enjoy this beautiful state we live in!