Rained Out

The smell of sizzling bacon early in the morning. Lazy afternoons spent sitting in a chair surrounded by tall trees as sunlight bleeds through the shadows to light up a good book. Campfires with marshmallows turning slowly above the flames. These are things I think of when I think of camping and that is why we decided several months back that we would spend the long Veterans Day weekend camping with my sister and her family and my wife's parents.

What we got, however, was slightly different. Friday night started things off with a gentle pitter-patter of raindrops on the roof of the trailer. I knew that rain was in the forecast, but the last report I had seen said showers in the late afternoon on Saturday. Nothing said rain Friday night. Soon the pitter-patter turned into a steady drumming and my mind raced to think of all the things I had left outside exposed to the rain. Not wanting to get wet, I decided that there was nothing that needed immediate retrieval and I eventually drifted back to sleep.

The next morning, the rain continued off and on. The kids played outside as much as they could, but there is only so much that can be done without creating a huge mess, so Plan B was put into motion. "Hey, kids!" I yelled. "Who wants to go play at the McDonald's playground?" Needless to say, the response was unanimous and we loaded five kids into our car while my sister and her husband took four. (No one really paid attention to whose kids were where as long as the numbers added up.) With all nine buckled up, we hit the road and invaded the unsuspecting McDonald's.

After returning to the campground several hours later, the rain began to come down much harder than before and the wind picked up. With the question of how to get a dry lunch answered, the topic inevitably shifted to dinner. No one really wanted to go out again and no one really wanted to spend hours cooped up in small trailers either with passels of young children clamoring at our feet. Since our house was only 40 minutes away, we suggested heading home for dinner and returning to the campground later in the evening once the rain died down.

The idea sounded great to the adults, but the kids took some convincing. "You can't go home in the middle of a camping trip," my oldest son complained.

"I know it is a little unorthodox, but it will be fun," I insisted. He eventually agreed, but only after he realized that using the word "unorthodox" in various sentences was actually the fun part.

Dinner was tremendous and the various catastrophes that fell upon our home during that time were all remedied before we left. This story isn't really about the catastrophes, but I will summarize them for your reading pleasure: 1) "Uhhh, Honey. Is the liquid laundry soap supposed to be spilled all over the floor of the laundry room?" 2) "Aaron, Elijah just spilled your dinner all over the floor!" 3) "Hey Aaron, do you have a plunger?" 4) "I think the leaky roof just got worse. Get me a bucket!"

During the course of dinner, the storm passed and by the time we returned to the campground a full moon was breaking through the clouds. With the kids in bed, the adults gathered around the campfire to enjoy what camping is all about.