For real. It's not like we've had just one camping trip from "you-know-where". There have been several. I feel like I've had a good attitude about it. I've tried and tried again when things didn't go well. I've persevered. But at this point, I can't help but feeling like God is saying to us (via thunderstorms and whatnot) "Stay home". "Go to a condo on the beach". "Go to a cabin in the woods". "Don't go camping anymore".
Yes, I checked the weather report. It said 30% chance of rain with isolated thunderstorms in the afternoon. Brent and I went back & forth about what this meant. A lot of times here, when they 30% chance, it doesn't rain at all. And does "isolated" mean to a particular region, or to a particular time of day? Either way sounds like a good chance that it won't be that bad. So we went.
Maybe I was too ambitious in paying for 3 nights. We've never lasted more than one. But the kids are older than the last time we went by 2 years. And they were so excited. The park was beautiful. They have lots of planned activities for the kids. There is a swimming beach on the lake, hiking trails and a creek to wade in. It would have been awesome.
The park is near Helen, GA and we got there a little early for check in, so we went to Helen for lunch and we ended up going tubing down the Hooch. It was great. Then the thunderstorms rolled in. We got to the camp and things seemed to have cleared up. Long enough for us to put up our tent. During this time, the kids were fighting like mad. Hunter had gone to her first slumber party the night before and stayed up past midnight, only to awake at her normal time of 6am. She was tired and crabby. (And she later told me that the girls at the slumber party were going to pierce her ears for her. They didn't only b/c she didn't want them to put an apple or lime on her ear!? But that would be for another post entitled "Hunter is never going to a slumber party again".) And Parker was running off into the woods. There was a lot of "getting in trouble". Then Hunter broke her glasses. This is the second pair in as many months. I was bitter. She said that she was having an emergency and she felt that she was "doomed". This is a new word for her. Where does she get these things? She has used it since and I've tried to explain about what it really means to be doomed. Anyway, by the time we got everything set up, sent Hunter in it for a nap, I took the boys on a hike, came back and busted out our new 2-burner propane powered stove to make sloppy joes, things were better. I said to Brent, "Maybe tomorrow, we should go back to Helen (which is only about 2 miles away) and stop at the package store I saw". Brent said, "why wait 'til tomorrow?"
So we loaded up the kids in the minivan and went to buy our weight in wine coolers. When we got back, I popped one open for each of us. The sky opened up and it started POURING. We had to throw everything that shouldn't get wet into the tent, including ourselves. It was fun at first. Listening to the rain fall and playing with flashlights. Then the lightening and thunder started. And eventually, we realized that we were not going to be able to emerge from the tent for the rest of the night. No campfire. No s'mores. No trip to the bathroom to wash our faces & brush our teeth. Actually, I did bathe the kids before we went to the store because the boys got really dirty on our hike. If by "isolated thunderstorms" the weather forecasters meant "staying over one spot for 12 hours with monsoon-like rain, lightning & thunder", they hit the nail right on the head.
The kids and Brent eventually fell asleep. After a couple of hours, I could hear that the water was literally rushing around and up under our tent. I fell asleep for a while, only to wake up to the realization that I was sleeping in an inch of water. And I was soaking wet. Oh boy. I couldn't sleep. I sat in a sitting position, praying to God that my kids didn't wake up and realize they were sleeping in water and that they don't get sick. And thanking him for the rain that our area to badly needs, but musing at the timing of it all.
The princess awoke. "I'm wet!" she yells. I say, "I know honey, we all are. Try to find a dry spot and go back to sleep. "I can't", she says. "And I have to go to the bathroom". By now it's about 2am and still storming. I say to myself, "We're out of here." I wake up Brent and ask him for the keys to the van. Hunter and I run to the bathroom in the pitch black b/c I'm pretty sure Carter had the flashlight under his pillow and I didn't want to wake him up. It was so warm and dry in the bathroom. I actually considered going to get our sleeping bags and sleeping in there. It was pretty clean, too. But, no. No, that wouldn't be fittin'. So we ended up in the car. There was so much stuff in the car b/c we had thrown a lot of things in there that we didn't want to get wet. And we had to put the food back in the car overnight to keep bears away (!). Hunter complained constantly. She had forgotten "Ni-Ni" in the tent and she can't fall asleep without him (still). She was still cold (at least she was dry!). She was sitting in the passenger seat and she pushed the button to make it tilt way back. When she did this, it knocked over the cooler which was sitting on the turned-down seat behind her. It dumped water and ice EVERYWHERE. I couldn't believe mine eyes. And I couldn't react fast enough as I had just fallen asleep. By now, it's about 3:30 and still storming. I had to use every dry towel we had to soak up the water from the carpet in the van. And most of the eggs were broken. And the switch went out in the passenger seat, so the seat wouldn't come back from laying down position. And I had to ride home like that, with my head in Carter's lap. Finally, somehow it was 7am. But it just never really stayed bright. Everything was so wet. And I was bitter and my back hurt. And Hunter was tired. The boys didn't seem any worse for the wear. They were like "Why are we going home?" The weather forecast was the same for that day as it had been the last. There was no way we were risking that again. I didn't think we could get everything dried out anyway. Our sleeping bags literally had to be WRUNG OUT. As did our pillows and blankets. It wasn't good. But, there were enough eggs to make our scrambled eggs. Anyone need a propane stove that's only been used twice?
We decided to pack up and get all our stuff out at home to dry out. It never rains at our house...we're in a drought! So we drive the 1 1/2 hours to home and pull in to our driveway and what do we hear? Yup, thunder. We just didn't want our tent to get mildewy and stuff, but you know. We hear you, Lord. We hear you.
Here are some pictures of our adventure. I hope the memories for the kids aren't horrible. I think the boys had a good time. Hunter gets it though. She's a princess like her mother. And thankfully, no one got sick.
Here was a new addition to our camping gear: a propane stove. We were excited because it meant we could eat more than hot dogs, ham sandwiches and pop tarts. For dinner we made sloppy joes. Anyone need a barely used propane stove?
Enjoying sloppy joe dinner in between thunderstorms.
This the river that we tubed down in Helen. You can see a tiny green spot on the midde. That's a guy on a tube. This was the highlight of our trip. The kids did great. It was about an hour long. We each had a tube and we were all tied together. It worked out great and the kids had a blast. Except the part toward the end where it started thundering & lightning. And I freaked out and dragged everybody through chest-high water and out of the river and we had to walk the rest of the way. At least we weren't that far away from where we were going.
Once the dust had settled and the rain had passed, we made our s'mores on the bbq in the backyard.
August, 2000: "Hey, wake up and drink your milk!"
The Sunflower cake.
The craft.
The water-sliding friends. On the left side in the back is Katherine G., to the left of Hunter is Lucy. On the right starting from the back: Emily, Mikayla, Rachel, Sierra & Kathryn B.
Our little princess, 2008
