Monday, August 30, 2010

I went camping and no one died

Despite my pouty face from last week, I did go camping and didn't kill anyone.  I know, I'm surprised too. 

If you know anything about me, it's that I hate camping.  I have always hated camping and you can thank my father for that.  As children, my father would pack us all into the van (with my mother gagged and tied in the back) and drag us out to "nature" for the weekend.  Despite being +40 degrees all summer, the moment we arrived at our destination, it began to ran and didn't stop.  Thus, we all sat in our tent for 3 days being bored and fighting.  At least that's how I remember it.  I am sure my father will have different memories.

To this day, I hate camping.  Why anyone would choose to go somewhere there are no toilets, to sleep on the ground, cook things poorly on a fire that won't start, and sit where the mosquitoes will eat you is beyond me.  For me, camping had damn well better have room service.  I'M A DELICATE FLOWER, PEOPLE.

So we (me, The Guy, his friend and her husband) arrived on Sunday at Duck Mountain and set up camp.  It took about an hour to try and sort through everything.  We had a camper (a 70s motor home complete with shag carpet) and had filled it to the brim.  Finally we had everything settled and got the fire going.  A bottle of Zippo later and it was a nice blaze.  We were joined by some friends and had a great evening talking and laughing.

I should have known it was going too well.

We had heard it might rain on the Monday, so when we went to bed, we pulled the chairs under the awning as a precaution.  Then it started to rain.  It rained for 17 hours without stopping.  It rained cats, dogs, polar bears, and elephants.  It rained until we thought the only way out of the park would be the boat we brought with us.  And so, for the entire day and night, we sat in the camper.  Four adults in one room.  With one place each to sit.

It was good that our friend was along because that's the only reason I wasn't the whiniest person in the camper.  We were all miserable and hungry and tired and dirty and bored and OMG TAKE ME HOME.  By Tuesday afternoon the rain let up.  Our campsite was flooded and there was 2 inches of rain in the bottom of the fire pit, but the boys were making us stay, so we were going to enjoy it.  (Please read "enjoy" as "complain until they either killed us or took us to a hotel")  We started a fire again after pillaging neighbouring abandoned campsites for dry wood and used another container of Zippo.  After a nice time of hanging out by the fire (thanking God that we weren't in the bloody camper at the moment) we headed to bed with the promise that if there were even the slightest sign of clouds we were going home.

No such luck.  Wednesday was clear and warm, so we knew we were stuck.  We finally got the hot water in the camper running, so showered off the grime and some of the grouch.  Sue and I spent the day by the fire reading our books while the guys went out on the boat.  We had a great day.  Thursday was much of the same and we thought we could actually get the hang of this thing.  Except that we really didn't want to.

Friday morning, Sue was up before the sun could remember which direction it was coming from.  We were packed and on the road before 9am.  As we headed out, we made sure the guys understood that, while we'd had a good time for the most part, we were NEVER DOING THIS AGAIN.

2 comments:

  1. All my memories of family camping are wonderful.

    The ONLY time it rained for three days was at Avonlea and we abandoned our tent and drove home. Went back for the tent when it dried up.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Did you see the boat commercial that Marvel posted on Facebook?

    ReplyDelete

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