The other day I told my Dad that Kelly and I were going camping for a weekend, and he immediately started to laugh hysterically. Once he caught his breath, he asked me to take a journal and a camera and record all the crazy and silly things that we get ourselves into. Whenever we get together, we tend to be, as most people have said - Hilarious! We really don't even try, it just kinda happens that way. We drag out the most ridiculous sides from each other and just have a grand time. Thankfully, my Dad, that sly dog that he is, had a grand idea and I followed his instructions. Since I forget stories until they are later triggered from my mind, I thought I'd give my blog a new use and keep it going. I know I don't have tons of readers but, the very few that I do have, enjoy it enough to still talk about them. Plus, since everyone is so far away, it's nice to keep everyone up to speed in my life. So, Maria and Dad, This is for you. And for everyone else important in my life, Thank you for loving me just the way I am. In every way that I am.
I have 5 titles that come to mind to explain this weekend. So, we'll start there.
#1- Just in case you set the tent up in the dark again.
Yes that did actually happen one time. And let me tell you, "bad" does not describe it. We were dying to escape from our everyday lives and decided to go camping alone. We of course were running late, and by the time we got to the site, the sun was going down and we just pulled up. No lights, no time, no patience and NO CLUE as to what we were doing. So after spending two hours attempting to get the damn tent up in the dark by the truck headlights, and arguing like crazy, we just both agreed to stand the stupid thing up any way we could and get on with the night. So there were were. Done reading the directions that should have just been written in Greek, with a tent half standing, sagging in all areas, and poles sticking out in the air waiting to poke someones eyes out. It was the messy birds nest that we gave up on the whole rest of the weekend. As luck would have it, it also rained that weekend.
Determined to not let that happen again, we got off work early, headed up to the lake with 4 hours of light for the "just in case" scenario. We picked one of the sites we had thought was pretty from the previous camping trip, and got right to work. We spread out the tent, put the poles side by side and looked at each other with blank stares, said nothing, and started laughing hysterically. Holy Shit, here we go again. Once again, the directions were Greek but somehow by the grace of God, the tent was up in less than 5 minutes on the first try. Completely amazed at what we had accomplished, I had Kelly grab me a pen, and we wrote down the directions in the idiot proof, yet hilarious way. See Below..
~ The two big guys (the two longest poles) go in the window holes. Stick the little guys (5 shorter poles) in the hub (the star shaped thingy on top) Have fun!
Amazing that something so simple ruined our last camping trip completely. At least we know now that we have directions that will make sense! Just in case we have to set up the tent in the dark again.
#2- Dust in the wind
Thankfully, we got to the site early. Somehow we managed enough time to allow for all the fuck ups we were gonna have that weekend. We'll start with Kelly's : I really really wanted to pack light this time. We tend to get too much food, and spend too much money because we both think that for some reason, we must get enough stuff for an army whenever we go anywhere. So we stuck to a plan, and got only the bare necessities and kept the spending under $100 total. Super nice! Since the last time we dropped about $300 on Lord only knows what. So as we were unpacking and setting up our site, Kelly pulled out our Coleman lantern. You know, those ones that you light little nets while the propane is going. Then there is light. Well, she didn't know from the last time (yes, that horrendous time-we also had to fix our lantern since the raccoons that attacked our site, broke it into a million pieces) that those little white net things are soft and disintegrate when touched or messed with. She fully took apart the lantern for Lord knows what reason, and looked at me with that face. The one that has "I fucked up" written all over it. All she could say was- I lifted this thing and they were dust in the wind! Dust in the wind I tell you! Crap. (with a smile on my face) OK, we can fix this. We'll make our first trip to town. Which was 20 min out of the way. After spending $40 at ace for other things we "needed" and laughing at our misfortunes the whole way, we were back on our quest to set up camp. First casualty of the trip not so bad right? Right?
#3- Reasons on why it's a good idea to designate pots and pans to your "camping stash" in storage permanently.
Saturday we wake up bright and early with our neighbor campers that decided to play their music all the way up in order to tune out their baby that would not stop crying. We were just happy to be camping so we went with the flow. Our brains have trained each others to think out processes in much the same way over the years. Which is awesome and pathetic all in the same breath. So, as I'm still in my sleeping bag, I'm trying to wake up, and running across things I can do to get coffee and breakfast starting. I run along all the things we packed, looking in my mind for the pot to boil water for coffee and pan to make our chorizo and eggs. Then it hits me. I start my morning with asking Kelly ; "Hey, did you pack.." she cut me off immediately and said "don't even fucking tell me your question. I just realized it." One look at each others faces and we already knew (I ignored the fact that I got shut down with my first sentence of my day to her) Apparently she was looking for the pots and pans in her mind too. We didn't pack anything to cook the food in! Arrgggh! What else were we going to do, but get back in the truck, and go back to the store. AGAIN. Thankfully the general store was open on the lake so we wouldn't have to go back into town. $80 later, we were back on our way with a cast iron pan, a pot, ice, and who knows what else.
Lesson learned: designate a box full of everything you need so you don't forget the stuff to cook all your food in. Because it sucks. And its expensive.
#4- The ground must still be wet from all the rain we had a week or two ago...
Dumbest (well, maybe not THE dumbest) thing I've ever thought. How could the ground still be wet from 1-2 weeks ago. Unless there was a flood, and that wasn't the case. Sometimes I amaze myself at the things I allow myself to think is correct. I blame it on lack of sleep, but I'm sure I've always done stuff like that. My first indicator should have been the sprinkler I saw in the ground about 4 feet from the tent. I even dragged my foot over it, thinking- "why on earth would they put sprinklers in here on a site? Oh well, they wouldn't turn it on while people are here anyway". At about 4:3o pm Saturday evening, we hear a loud noise. We both look back and realized there was a sprinkler hitting a tree. No biggie. And then we see another sprinkler, (the one I dragged my foot across) that is heading in our direction!! OH CRAP! The smart side of my brain gets our pot (the one that cost us a small fortune) and covers the sprinkler that would have drenched our tent. I swear I can be smart sometimes! Whew! Crisis avoided.
However, this sprinkler system explains not only the horrific amount of mosquitoes that we had to fight off all weekend, but the mud we tracked everywhere inside the tent, and the swarm of ants that attacked our tent. Fortunately, we managed to keep the ants on the outside of the tent and kept it zipped the whole time. But still. We could have avoided all this, had I put two and two together in the first place. As for the mosquitoes, we were eaten alive. Kelly has bites all over her neck and bites in her ears. Somehow even though I wore a sweater all weekend, my arms are bitten, but that's not nearly as funny as Kelly's ears.
#5- 1 vinegar + 1 vinegar = 2 sour stomachs.
Saturday night we planned a nice and easy dinner. Marinated chicken, broccoli salad, grilled potatoes and 3 large bottles of wine. I managed to burn the chicken, but it was still tasty. Kelly managed to drench the potatoes in balsamic vinegar and they weren't as tasty. Actually they were horrific. And the salad was also dredged in a lot of regular vinegar. We spent the remaining night sitting in an upright position, praying for our Zantac to kick in because we were dying of heartburn and sour stomachs. I'm more than sure that the bottles of wine didn't help but at least we were able to laugh drunkenly at Kelly as she kept repeating "I poisoned us". Words to anyone with reflux or any other problems with your stomach : vinegar and vinegar makes sour stomachs.
Oh and by the way, when the propane bottles state the amount of hours it will keep a lantern ignited- they aren't joking.
As we were laughing and burping up a storm, our lantern died. We spent another hour by the fire and laughed at all our options of how we were going to make it back to the tent, swat the ants near the door to keep them from getting in, and make it to the restroom once more before bed in the pitch black night.
All in all, we actually had an amazing and relaxing weekend. How else would we have been entertained had we not had all of our misfortunes? We set up all the stuff ourselves, got the fires and charcoal going every time and $250 dollars later, we are still doing better than the first $300 trip.
Oh! and one more for the road-
Take the lesson from Kelly, when dumping out the charcoal from the mini grill, make sure the wind isn't blowing when your tossing the soot .. Because it WILL blow back in your face.
No comments:
Post a Comment