Ask me to go camping? I darn you!
People have always went camping a far back as I can remember, grand it now a days with better equipment, RVs, and mobile homes it is a lot easier and not so much work. I have always thought camping was a lot of work to be miserable. My case in point ?one sunny weekend some good friends of ours and their two daughters 8 and 9 along with my husband decided to go to camping in a nearby campground on the lake. It was a beautiful day sun shining, a nice breeze but I still did not want to go but because everyone else did I give in.
We packed up everything you would need for a couple days for four adults and two kids. So off we went with two truckloads of camping gear. It was a sunny day as we drove to a camp site on the lake everyone like to fish at this spot from time to time. The camp site was set in trees and a short walk to the lake down the hill. As we got to the camp site and started to set up it started to rain, didn't seem like it was going to rain long because it was only a drizzle, but we knew that it would go away soon. We set up tents, started a fire, but the rain did not stop. So the men decided to erect a tarp over the picnic table. With bungee cords and bailing twine and another brown tarp to go with the blue one already up and being held up at one corner with some duct tape, we were dry, or so we thought. It kept raining the rest of the afternoon and into the night. There was nothing to do but go to bed and hope for drier day tomorrow.
There is something about a leaky tent, you do not know it leaks until it is raining, and you are on a camping trip in the middle of the night. So, I laid there on a wet sleeping bag with a damp blanket covering me and holding a saucepan on my chest to catch the drips I knew this was why I hated camping. As the pan would fill with water, I would open the tent flap and throw the water outside, which was senseless because it was as wet inside the tent as out. I looked over at my husband who had put a large black garbage bag over his body and head. At first, I was mad thinking he was committing suicide and not going to experience this wonderful adventure, but I knew he was trying to stay dry and then I got mad at him because he thought of the trash bag first.
Morning did not come soon enough and as I climb out of my wet cave; I saw the guys had added two black trash bags to our homestead with one end being held up with a my little pony hair clip. It gave it that lived in looked. Still raining the fishes had a drier place than we did. The girls were hungry but no they would not be happy with old hot dog from the night before, they wanted eggs and potatoes. With a blow torch and what was the driest of the wet wood we started cooking.
I was standing over the fire holding an umbrella in one hand and stirring potatoes with the other when a truck with two men and a lady pulls into the camp site next door. Within five minutes, FIVE MINUTES, they had put up a two-story tent with a screen in sunroom off the back, set up folding chairs, a table and got drinks out of their cooler and open a bag of chips.
I was just standing there with my mouth open when I turn to my crew, and they were standing there with their mouths open too. Someone had to say it, so I did "I'm done camping". No one said a word and within minutes we had everything down and, in the truck, and as I sit in the truck trying to dry off with a wet towel, I saw one of the men get a portable HVAC unit out of his truck and was attach it to the tent. Glad to be leaving I looked back and saw a portable satellite dish in his truck. Are you kidding me?
It poured all the way home but as we pulled into the driveway the sun came out, the birds started singing and I thought I saw Bambi running across the yard. Sitting there soaked to the bone I turn to my husband said, "ask me to go camping again, I darn you."