By Chambers (11) and Atticus (9)

During the first part of our spring break we went primitive camping in Tate’s Hell State Forest.   We were invited by our two friends, Ed and Marylyn.   We had a wonderful time and got to experience the great outdoors in a big way!  There are a few things that two city kids like us feel really glad to have had a chance to experience.   One very interesting thing was all the beautiful wildlife we saw as we were paddling down the Womack Creek.  We saw the cutest little turtles as they lopped off the logs floating nearby.   Another cool thing to see were all the wild azaleas that were light pink and star shaped, very different than the ones we have in our neighborhood at home.   Finally, we saw beautiful birds like cardinals, herons, and finches flitting around from tree to tree.   Late at night while in the tents, we heard lots of screech owls.   Oh, wait, we can’t leave out the brown water snake camouflaged in a tree!

There were also a lot of things we did at the camp like putting up all our tents and building a fire.  We did our best to leave no trace that we were ever there.   Marylyn even cleaned up other people’s trash that was left in the woods.  I can remember how much fun it was to sit around the camp fire in our PJ’s roasting marshmallows and listening to our friends’ ghost stories.  Overall Tate’s Hell was a great experience and tons of fun, so it should be called Tate’s Heaven!!!