My husband is painfully old-fashioned when it comes to family time. He has all sorts of delusions of grandeur about making high quality memories for our kids. This has translated into the biggest vacation farce of all, camping. A week of camping.
Unlike my Tired Not Dead partner in crime, I loved me some camping (note the past tense). Glamping might be a more accurate term in my case but I digress. My husband and I have been planning a week of outside adventure fun for 6-months. We have a new camper, have decked out said camper, and have all of our children completely psyched for a week of fun.
Four days before we take off my husband gets sick. The kind of sick where I would rather he just stay away until it is over. After much persuasion my husband hit up urgent care. Lymes Disease. I was relieved we had an answer and a treatment plan, but seriously. This was a 4-week recovery and the whole ordeal was more than unpleasant.
Now I have a sick, cranky, and incredibly stubborn man to contend with. There was no talking him out of this. He had a hundred arguments of why and how the trip could still happen. I relented. This meant that all the prep work and packing fell on my shoulders, while also caring for all the kids and the husband. Lord be with me.
We arrive at our lake camping site that was to be our home for the next week. It is raining. Between rainstorms it’s misting, which was worse. We had a feeling of being constantly wet on top of being confined to a small camper. The rain also had the added benefit of contributing to a septic backup, think about that one.
To add to this the baby started cutting teeth, the 3-year old was convinced she was actually 13-years old , and the 5-year old was going through yet another jerk stage.
I strongly hinted that we should cut our losses and head home. By “hint” I mean I begged/whined my side of the argument. Of course my husband out reasoned me once again. His family was about to arrive and we would have back up.
Enter the Inconsiderate Middle Aged Townie Twats (IMATT for short). IMATT were fellow campers who were “friends” of the family. These women were in desperate need of attention. They were loud, obnoxious, and beyond immature. Oh, and constantly drunk. Not people I want around my kids. Frustratingly they invited themselves to all the family activities. More frustrating, they refused to quiet down once my children were trying to sleep in a tent camper only feet away from them. This caused our little family to have a very difficult night.
Then came the indoor rain. It had been a muggy day that was followed by a dramatic temperature drop. Our kids woke up and began to bounce around the camper. This bouncing released the large, cold droplets that had been clinging to the ceiling of our camper. It was like a sudden rain shower. Now we were lacking sleep, lacking dry clothing, and lacking patience. When voicing my frustration the following morning I was told “That’s just the lake!”. Never again.
After all of this I made a firm rule regarding outdoor adventure. Camping trips cannot be scheduled for more than 3-days. Honestly, it’s going to be a cold day in heck before I consent to that crap again.
Tired Not Dead 