Fort de Chartres Winter Camp

We had a great time camping at Fort de Chartres the first weekend of November. There were a lot of firsts for me this time. It was the first time I got to tent camp with some new friends named Logan, Dillon and Zack. They are a great bunch of guys and a joy to be around. My normal camping buddies, Dale, Simeon and Brooke were there too. I can’t say enough about what good friends they are. I look forward to many more camps with or new formed group again. It was also the first time that I had camped in temperatures that got below freezing! Friday night, when we arrived, they were out of firewood. We’re not allowed to bring our own in but Dale and I had not had supper yet and it was getting much colder after dark. Finally, about 8:00 a load of wood arrived and they, thankfully, dumped it just a few yards from our campsite. Dale and I cooked fresh trout on a flat rock and it was late when we turned in. Saturday night is when we got the really hard frost. There was a heavy fog in the morning. At least we had enough wood to keep everyone warm around the fire. The one picture is a guy trying to brush his teeth.

It was the first time that I got to hang my business shingle on its new hanger. We were camped back only the levee, away from most the vendors, but I believe that the sign helped to draw attention to my lanterns and my dad’s totes he had made. I was able to get rid of all my lanterns but one!

A lot of good memories were made this weekend. We had four guns made by Jackie Brown in our camp; a smooth rifle 20 gauge of Dales, a smooth rifle 28 gauge of Simeon’s, a 20 gauge fowler of mine plus a .45 caliber pistol. The fowler is not finished yet so will be a good winter project of me.

I’ll not forget the three younger guy’s tent almost going up in smoke. The rear door flap caught fire from being too close to the stove pipe. We got it put out before too much damage was done.

Dale led our Sunday service and he really did a great job. Talking about God’s blessings and how He has worked in the lives of our fore fathers is always great. We want to make that a permanent feature of our future camps.

This was really one of the better events that I’ve been to. The food was great, we had guests to our camp, we froze to death, fun with good friends and we picked up some new gear! Plus, I sold some lanterns(the proceeds from these will go to help with the medical clinic expenses that Bibles For The World just finished). They put on a Woodswalk event as well and hopefully by next year we can have a team to participate. That will be another first!

Here's a few more event pics. Thanks for visiting.