Camping

Camping slideshow.

Before making the mistake of mentioning it in front of the kids, Dan and I discussed camping out in the pop-up (pup) and he was willing.  I didn’t have to cajole for once.  Amazing.

I wanted to try it out before we actually attempted camping in public.  Wanted to get a feel for what we can do to make it go smoothly the next time out.

So Dan moved the pup to the back field and we set it up.  I won’t lie, it was a pain in the butt trying to locate everything we needed.  Of course most of it was left to me:  pillows, sleeping bags, s’more fixins, bug spray, on and on.  No big deal except that Dan always bitches that I never sit down and relax with everyone.  Ha, as if I could.  It was getting dark.

Around dusk, the wind died down and we were able to use the portable fire pit that we bought back in 2007.  Never used it before then.  Figures.  I didn’t get to enjoy it, but I did have some s’mores.  I plan on using it a lot more once the weather gets warmer.

As you can tell from the slideshow, we weren’t exactly “roughing it”.  I had Dan bring the TV/DVD out and we watched The Great Outdoors.  We all fell asleep toward the end.  Then the cold set in.  Don’t know what we were thinking.  Ughh.  It was quite artic.

The girls were supposed to sleep on one end in there sleeping bags and I set our end up with our sleeping bags laid out, not separately zipped.  Well Miss Morgan decided to crawl in with us.  I was on the end toward the inside of the camper, Morgan on the end near the canvas and Dan in the middle.  I had about 7 inches of mattress and could only sleep on my side.  It was a very long night and I saw every hour tick by on the alarm clock.  I couldn’t sleep and I kept dreaming and waking up.  Ashley had the single bed all to herself.

Around 3:oo a.m. I remembered that the canvas was not attached to the bunk end on either end of the pup.  Morgan was sleeping with all of her body weight on the canvas.  Meaning that she could fall through, four feet to the ground, hitting the hitch on the way down.  The anxiety set in and I kept pulling her back toward Dan and I tried to tell him about the dilemma, but he was cranky, half-asleep and poo-pooing me and my concerns.

Somewhere after 4:00 a.m. the birds started in.  It was horrible.  Then the crows started in with their version of dueling bangos.  I was cold, my back and neck were killing me and I had had enough by 5:00 a.m.  My bladder and I decided to go back to the house and stay there.  After checking that Morgan was still fine, I went in and after taking care of business, I crawled into bed.  Didn’t think I would get warm ever again.

About five minutes after finally dowzing off, the doorbell rang.  Freaking Ashley went to the front of the house instead of the unlocked patio door.  Ughh.  Luckily she went right to sleep again with me.

Around 9:00 a.m.  I woke up and found Dan and Morgan in the living room.  Morgan couldn’t wait to spill the beans to me.  Yup, Morgan fell through the gap and was being held around the shoulders by her sleeping bag.  Dan said she was still sleeping like that, bare legs dangling outside, when he finally noticed that 70% of her was not present and accounted for.  He couldn’t even pull her up, he had to push her out and set her on the ground.  I guess she panicked at that point and freaked out.

That boy heard “I told you so”, for about 20 minutes straight. 

I have no idea why the stupid pup is designed like that.  Very dangerous.  The kids will not be sleeping in the inside spots ever again and we will be making modifications to prevent anything like that happening again.

Oh yeah, I also dreamt that there was a bear outside the pup.  I could vividly hear it growling and rummaging around.  Somehow I made it to the house and got a gun (I don’t even know how to load one) and tried to shoot it.  My one and only shot ricocheted off the television screen.  Dan finally had to take the gun and shoot it.  Crazy.

Needless to say, we won’t be attempting that again until it’s much warmer outside.  My poor old body can’t take it.