"O Shenandoah, I long to see you..."

This weekend, we took Xan camping to the Shenandoahs. We realized it's the first time we've gone camping since Angela was pregnant; we also realized it's the first long amount of time we've had with each other for a loooooong time, given the major last push I've done to get the slavedriver evil thang book out on time. (Indeed, for those keeping track, all edits were made and the whole thing was sent out on Thursday for the next step in the process.)

We had a ton of fun and Xan had a fabulous time in the tent (particularly on the second evening, when we encouraged him to go to sleep by giving him a small flashlight to hold). Big Meadows campground turned out to be (a) farther from the actual meadows than we anticipated but (b) not as over-run as we thought it might be, particularly since we lucked out with a super-cool tentground way on the periphery. Xan made friends with a 4-year-old named Eli who had superhuman strength ("I have the strength of Batman and Superman and Spiderman! All together! I can pick Xan up, you watch!" This, in response to Xan scampering up the hill.) and we had personal encounters with raccoons, deer and Philadelphians. And we didn't even look at either a cell phone or a clock the entire time. Fabulous. Brilliant.

In the meantime, some scenes from the fam communing with nature:Look! A big meadow!

The kid and his mother, up a tree

On the Rose River trail, Xan shares the secret that there is no movie theater nearby.

A real nature boy

Yes, we really did hike the trail!

There is something else we learned. During our big hike, we had the following conversation:
"Hey, Xan, did you see the bear?" (There really was a bear and her cub, which we saw at a distance.)
"A bear. And deer."
"Yes, we saw a deer as well."
"And a tiger."
Blink. "A tiger?"
"Yes, a tiger. A red tiger."
"A red tiger? Where do you see that?"
"The red tiger gives me candy."

At this point, we looked at one another, baffled. Any ideas as to what this refers to would be greatly appreciated.