On Friday, March 27th, four friends set off on a camping adventure...
Okay, I know exactly what you are thinking..."March 27th? That was almost three months ago. Yes, I have been very delinquent. So, I only have 4 "official" blog followers. But judging from the number of people that have given me a hard time for my delinquent blogging, there are plenty of closet followers.
There are a lot of reasons for my delinquency. First of all, I couldn't find the cord to upload the pictures from my camera. Then, on the weekend of April 17th, Joe and I went ot Vegas for my cousin, Stephanie's wedding. Well, to my great dismay, I lost my camera in a cab. A dozen calls later to the cab campany's lost and found, and still no camera. Major bummer. Then our next camping trip, a family reunion (on my Mom's side) to Turner Falls, got cancelled because of bad weather. I guess I just lost my motivation.
So, no pictures to accompany this blog. Where was I... Oh yes. On Friday March 27th, four friends set off on a camping adventure. We had been trying for months to convince our dear friend K-Dog to accompany us on a camping trip. He works long hard hours, and getting him out of town for a weekend is damn near impossible. After much begging and pleading, he finally carved some time out for a camping trip. Brent was kind enough to host us out a Foster Farm for the weekend. So, around 7:00pm on Friday evening we set off on an hour drive to Lone Oak, Texas convoy style.
Let me preface this by saying that it had been raining all week long. If my recollection serves me correctly, it had even rained a bit earlier Friday morning. But, the rain had stopped and the forecast was that it would be clear sailing the rest of the weekend. So, we moved forward with our plans.
So here was the plan -- when we arrived, we were going to hook up the trailer to the tractor, throw all of the gear into the trailer, and haul everything to the camp site. To our dismay, we realized that the tractor had a flat tire. And not just a slightly deflated tire. I am talking about the metal was touching the ground. Slight inconvenience.
Plan B -- We would load up the Explorer (maybe two loads) and drive the Explorer to the campsite and unload from there. As we assessed the terrain we realized that the most of the travel to the campsite was extremely muddy and swampy (I assure you the description of swampy is no exageration). There was a high possibility that if we had driven the Explorer into the swampy terrain that it would have gotten stuck in the mud. We couldn't chance this since we did not have the tractor (remember the flat) to haul the Explorer out. Now the situation was getting done right disasterous.
On to Plan C -- We would drive the Explorer as far as we felt would be safe, and then haul load after load (after load) using the ATV. So, we executed Plan C driving about 60% of the way to our destination. We got out and walked the rest of the way. Remember the swamps I mentioned...well, we had to wade through these swamps of ankle deep goock (I know that is not a real word). Our feet were soaked to the bone. It was cold and wet and things were definately not going well. Even the ever optimistic K-Dog started had a few moments of pessimism.
It took nearly two hours to get everything hauled to the camp site. I would estimate that it was about 10pm by this time. We had only the light of our flashlights to start making camp. It was a bit overwhelming. It was in the low 40s and we were wet. Out number one priority was to get a fire going. At least we had the foresight to gather some dry kindling from the barn before making our trek to the camp site. However, it took some time before we could find enough dry wood to start a fire. It was not easy going. We must have fumbled with the fire for about 20 minutes. Then Brent to the rescue. I don't know if it is his natural outdoor skills or his military training, but Brent had the fire up and going in a matter of minutes. It was for this great feat that Brent earned his camping name -- Fire Master B.
Things were starting to look up. We had a good fire going which helped to light up the camp site. Now we each set off to put up our tents and make up our homes for the next two nights. About an hour later, we were all set up with some food on the fire for dinner. Things were definately looking up. We proped our damp feet up to fire and tossed back a few drinks. Before we knew it, we were even joking about the tractor debaucle.
We got such a late start, it was only natural that the festivities went into the wee hours of the morning. I have no clue how late we were up. 3am? 4am? All I know is that I sleep like a baby.
Despite the bright morning sun, we all sleep in the next morning. By the time we got up and had some breakfast, it was almost noon. My memory is a little fuzzy from here. I know that there were a few trip to the house to take care of personal business. There was also some ATVing around the property. It wasn't long before we were back to the campsite drinking and jesting with each other. Like I said, Saturday was pretty fuzzy for me. Perhaps one of my fellow campers can offer some enlihgtening details in the blog comments.
The only thing that stands out in my mind was a interpretive dialogue of an owl interraction. It sounded as if the two owls might be "getting imtimate" with perhaps some reluctance from one of the parties. My husband offered up to the group his interpretation of the conversation that transpired. (Disclaimer -- this is slightly obscene. Not for the kiddos). It went something like this -- "I don't care if you have a headache. You better get down there, hoot your ass off for some Advil, and take this owl penis". Yes, obscene. But in the moment, it had us rolling on the dirt.
Sunday morning we mobilized at a decent hour. Well, all except Camp Master B. Even though he was awake, he refused to leave the comforts of the tent. For a good 30 mintues he carried on converation from inside the zipped up tent. It was then that he started refer to himself as "The Tent". I would throw a bottle of water into the tent and he would say "The Tent is pleased". In refering to the quantities of alcohol that he drank the night before, it would be "The Tent is hungover". After a while, K-Dog and I decided it was time for "The Tent" to get up off his lazy you know what. So we creep up to either side of the tent (the actual tent) and unhooked the rainfly. The bright morning sun flooded in and "The Tent was not pleased". Well, it was effective but the person formally know as "The Tent" was pissy about the whole thing. He soon got over it, because it was rather humorous.
So that was that. In summary, we polished off a big bottle of Jager, a big bottle of Vodka, and about 2 cases of beer. This blog is about 3 months late, but still worth sharing.
Coming soon...Tubing and camping in New Braunfels.
No comments:
Post a Comment