You can take the millennial out of the city...

"Y'all take credit cards?" I asked the Park Ranger.

It's 9:00 a.m. on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. The line of cars waiting to get onto Skyline Drive, a 105-mile stretch of road inside Shenandoah National Park, curved around behind us so that I couldn't see the end.

I used the Notes app in my phone to hammer out a list of everything we would need to make a fire, eat and drink, sleep, take shelter, clean up, etc. I organized everything with Tetris-like skill into the sedan we would take to the mountains. Tent, sleeping bag, cooler, kindling, pillows, obviously.

We'd gone through, item by item, and checked everything off on the list. Bathing suits? Check. One should always bring a bathing suit on a trip - you just never know. We didn't use them this time.

Friday night it rained. Hard. We wussed out. What's the point of setting up camp when everything is wet? You just sit there in a wet tent wishing you weren't in a wet tent. Even the playing cards you brought are slick from the humidity and when you go to sleep you lay down on a wet pillow.

Yuck.

But we were determined. The weather forecast for Saturday was great - 75 degrees and mostly sunny. About as perfect as you can ask for. We woke up at 7:00 a.m., Tetrised our checked-off list of items into the car and cruised off into the sunrise.

A couple hours later we're at the entrance to Skyline Drive. The Thornton Gap entrance, to be exact, just a few miles east of Luray and its wondrous caverns. To the south of us is the heart of Shenandoah, miles of hiking trails - including the famous 2,194-mile long Appalachian Trail - and the majority of Skyline Drive. 10 miles to the north is our destination, a large campground and our home for the next day, maybe two if we were feeling particularly adventurous.

Now I'd heard tell that Shenandoah could be a nightmare on weekends, especially holiday weekends. And it showed. Every reserve-able campsite in the vicinity was booked for the weekend. But there were first come first served campsites available, or FF on the nps.gov website.

I guess you can call me an optimist.

Leading up to the weekend, I thought our chances might be slim of beating the crowd - that is, the rest of those like me who didn't reserve a campsite and were going to leave early on Friday to get one o' them FF sites. But we had a chance. I booked a backup site an hour away in West Virginia, just in case. Again, determined.

As Friday approached and the major storm system was sweeping across the Southeast I knew our chances were improving, but that might mean we'd get wet. And we've already been over the yuckiness of camping when it's wet. So I proposed leaving early Saturday and beating the other crowd - that is, those who were like us and wussed out Friday night.

So there we sat, in line in our Tetris car, when it hit us. We ain't in Kansas anymore, Toto. Well, OK, we weren't in the DC metro area anymore. A place where cash isn't really a thing. I haven't carried cash in my wallet in years. I just don't need it. My bank balance is numbers on a screen and it goes up or down with clicks of a mouse or taps of a finger on my phone.

Meagan was a girl scout, though. She combs through her purse and says, "I have $5. No wait, $6 - wait, $7. I have $7."

The entrance fee for Skyline Drive was $30.

We watched a Honda Fit at the front of the line make a u-turn. Uh-oh. We couldn't get out of line. It was already longer than when we we first arrived. We'd stick it out, "Hey, was that a card or folded up bills that guy just gave them?"

As we sat there awaiting our fate, the other big question loomed. Would there be any campsites?

A car pulled through and as we got closer, there was the sign. It listed the 4 campgrounds and their vacancy status. All had vacancies. Phew. I was right.

Bunch of softies around here. Including us.

Another car went through. We're almost there. What's plan B? Ask where an ATM is? Ask if I can Venmo one of them and they'll put in the cash?

Our turn. "Y'all take credit cards?" "Yep."

Yesssss. Wait. This is just for the entrance fee to Skyline, right? Yes. Do they take credit cards at the campsite? Yep.

Right on.

So we camped. I whittled cooking and hiking sticks. We hiked part of the Appalachian Trail and I used my superior trail navigating skills to ensure a young couple got to their destination after making a wrong turn. I made TWO fires after getting made fun of for not being able to make one on a previous (also wet) camping trip. We ate hot dogs and s'mores and took a nap in our hammock. We hiked a couple of summits, and Meagan took some great pictures.

The pollen in the mountain air hit me like a ton of bricks and I've been fighting allergies since. My back hurts from our hike and sleeping on the ground. I used the bathroom while having a stare-down with a spider. Caterwaulin' owls kept us up most of the night. Meagan was afraid that bears would smell the Thai Chili cashews we accidentally left in the tent instead of putting in the bear locker. A child woke the entire campground up at 4 a.m. screaming about a spider and wanting to go home.

I might be a millennial, but I am technically from the country and I love knowing that I have the skills to survive in the wilderness.

And I love coming home knowing that I don't have to.