The Adventures of Camp Blogaway – From the hills of the San Bernadino Mountains to Beverly Hills!

There has been much chatter over the past several months about Camp Blogaway. Whether you have been reading my blog or are a fellow food blogger and/or camper, you are probably familiar with Camp Blogaway. I signed up to be a happy camper many months ago when I was just at this food blogging thing for a very short time.

Fresh air here we come!

You’ve just gotta eat here when in LA!

My 6 month blogiversary will actually be on the 23rd of May, so as you can see, I am still new to this whole gig. That was one of the reasons I decided to join in on the fun.

I wanted to learn what I didn’t know about food blogging, better the skills I did have and to meet fellow bloggers that I “know” by networking online. Well, I have to say, that camp did not disappoint. This truly was a great weekend and I met some really incredible people. I was very impressed by the attendees, the sponsors and everyone that had a part in the entire Camp Blogaway event. The greatest appreciation goes to Patti Londre at Worth The Whisk for coming up with the idea in the first place. She is beyond enthusiastic and very funny, I might add. Everyone needs a little comic relief at 7,000 ft. Knockers up! (It would just take too long for me to try to explain that one…).

My room on left, Gigi (My Lucious Temple) and Kim (National Onion Assoc.) on right

For those of you that know me personally, you will know that this must have been a really big deal for me if I was getting on a plane to get there. I am not the most relaxed flier (can you say WHITE KNUCKLE?!), so I wanted to go to camp in a really bad way. Of course, this fear of flying problem is nothing that a Xanax and a vodka and oj can’t fix, so away I went! Roger was traveling with me since we were making this a bit of a holiday, so I also had him to grab onto just in case the plane started an unexpected descent (isn’t that what they always say…unexpected loss in cabin pressure…well, I hope it’s unexpected! Surely the airlines don’t plan for that to happen…).

Denise Vivaldo

We arrived at LAX from Atlanta just about in time for lunch (which was late by my watch), but now we were on West Coast time. My hubby sure knows how to treat me right when it comes to dining, so we stopped at In-N-Out Burger on the way to camp. Gotta get ready for camper food. 😉 We were so excited to get to camp, that my husband was speeding driving at a brisk pace up the mountain. Very close to camp, we even ran someone off the road had someone pull over for us. At first glance, I thought it was Cristina from Teenie Cakes. As it turns out, it was not her, but she sure looked like a food blogging camper to me. If you are reading this and that happened to be you, sorry!

Once we arrived at camp, we were greeted by Patti (our fearless camping leader), registered and then were given our cabin assignments. You might remember that I begged shamelessly for a private room and did win one, so I was really excited when I saw my room complete with a fireplace (just kidding – it was painted on the wall!).

Art & Adrienne Ramirez with The Bunkycooks

Roger’s accommodations were not quite as nifty, so I was sure to keep my own space for the two evenings at camp!

Adrienne Ramirez enjoys s’mores!

We were really busy the entire weekend with activities (starting with the Wilton cake decorating session when we first arrived), presentations by our guest speakers and PR panelists, eating, drinking (lots and lots of water!) and socializing the entire event. I thoroughly enjoyed photographer Art Ramirez (as well as getting to know both he and his wife, Adrienne), food stylist Denise Vivaldo (what a hoot!), Barbara Gibbs Ostmann, Danny Jauregui, Casey Benedict-Pendergast and all the sponsors and PR panelists who shared thoughtful insights and gave great advice to all of us campers.

John & Denise – There’s a Newf in My Soup!