Camping Trip 2009

For anyone who gets a good laugh at the stories about my kids you will want to read this. Just remember I am not a writer. Last week Jimmy took me and the kids fishing/riding in the boat. "Let’s go camping" the kids said! "Sure why not! One night won’t be that bad" I thought. Since we did not have a baseball tournament coming up we decided to camp at Enid Lake, which is about an hour from our house. All week the kids talked about it. Sleeping under the stars, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows and swimming in the lake. Sounds easy enough! Called my friend Ginger to borrow a tube and a sleeping bag. Jimmy and the kids had sleeping bags. Friday I took the kids to Wal-Mart to buy supplies. I knew I did not need to go overboard and buy a bunch of stuff we did not need for one night so. I bought bug spray, sunscreen, a bag of marshmallows, 3 bags of chips(to snack on),a pack of hot dogs, a tent light and two flashlights. One for each kid. Friday evening when Jimmy got home from work he had a surprise. A new tent! It was nice. 6 person, a little closet, a small cooler door(so you could reach out and grab a drink from the cooler without having to leave the tent-the kids thought it was a doggy door). $135 from Target. Yikes! We better like camping is what I was thinking. Later we found out you could rent a cabin for $85. Oh well, not as fun. Saturday morning packed up and headed out! On the way Jimmy asks "What did you bring to eat?" "Hot dogs" I replied. "That’s it? How many packs?" he asked. "One, there is only 4 of us. That’s two apiece; one for lunch and one for supper." "Are we on a diet? What about buns and condiments?" he says. "Um, I forgot about buns. We don’t need buns we are going to cook them over a fire" I tell him. So he pulls into Senatobia Wal-Mart for charcoal(I forgot that too…I thought that is what the sticks and branches were for) and buns. The kids and I wait in the truck FOREVER! He eventually comes out with 2 more packs of hot dogs and charcoal. "Crap" he says "I forgot the buns"….And again we’re off! We get to the lake and check out the different campsites. We did not want to put up our tent in between two high dollar RV’s so we decide to go to the tents only campground. We find the perfect spot, right next to the lake, boatramp, bathrooms, beach and playground. And bonus-no one else is there. We unload and start putting up the tent. This takes almost 2 hours in the blazing heat with the kids circling and screaming "Can we get in yet?" over and over. The picture of the tent and the instructions do no match! But we get it up! By this time we are hungry so Jimmy fires up the grill and cooks us some dogs. Tucker and Riley can’t wait so they eat a couple raw. YUCK! Ready to go out on the boat, have a little fun in the sun, ride the tube and realize we have no way of blowing the tube up….Jimmy decides we should go to the gas station at the Oakland exit(about 10minutes) and use the air compressor. We get there and there is no power from the storm that hit the night before. The kids are very disappointed but we tell them we will swim today and come blow the tube up tomorrow when the power is back on. Jimmy goes in and buys a case of water because we drank all we had brought with us while trying to put up the tent. Back to the campground. Get the boat in the water and get to relax. We find some Grabblers that Jimmy knows and follow them for a while. For those of you that don’t know what a Grabbler is, men that go under the water and check these big wooden boxes for catfish that are the size of Riley, try to grab them and pull them out-WITH THEIR HANDS. Google it! It is insane! Unfortunately all of their boxes were empty that day. But the kids got to swim and I got some sun. Around dusk we head back to the camp. Eat more hot dogs. Watch some other people come in and set up tents. Eat some chips. Eat A LOT of marshmallows! The kids ride there bikes, go to the playground…Time for bed.. Riley has arranged everyone’s sleeping bags in the tent and we all lay down in unbelievable heat. After a few minutes I hear "I’m scared" " I want to go home"…my kids do not go to sleep in the dark or in a quiet room. I know- not good parenting to let your kids fall asleep to the TV, but it works…at home…not in a tent….So being the good mother that I am I give them each a Benedryl. Ahh! Peace and quiet at last! The next thing I hear around midnight is a truck with LOUD mufflers putting a LOUD boat in the water. "What are they doing?" I ask Jimmy. "Probably bow fishing with spotlights" he tells me. Then I hear some hollering and LOUD music. HMM not fisherman sounds more like some DRUNK REDNECKS! UGH!! It takes them forever to get the boat in, pull the loud truck back up, and drive off! Did I mention how loud the boat was? Finally get some sleep! I think they ran out of beer because the boat comes back about an hour later. One guys yells to another guy "You’ve got 15 minutes" and off he goes in the MUFFLER truck. While he is gone the people in the boat stay right there with the music blaring! I think "should I call the park rangers? How would I do that" Truck guy comes back and the boat takes off. About two o’clock Tucker wakes up and says "I can’t breathe". "Did you bring his inhaler?" Jimmy asks. Not going to win mother of the year this year….. So Jimmy throws on a T-shirt and he and Tucker head to the house (which is about an hour away). They get a few miles up the interstate when Tucker tells Jimmy he needs to go to the bathroom; #2. Luckily, there is a rest area right there. A few miles later Tucker realizes the raw hot dogs, gazillion marshmallows and Benedryl are not sitting to good. He tells Jimmy he "has to go bad" so Jimmy pulls over and Tucker explodes on the side of the interstate. Jimmy gives him his T-shirt to wipe himself and tells him just to throw it in the woods when he is done. Poor Tucker! Well, a few more miles down the road and it hits Tucker again. Jimmy pulls over and this time all Tucker has is the underwear he is wearing to wipe himself so…he finishes and throws that in the woods. Later I asked Jimmy if Tucker rode the rest of the way naked. "Yes, but I made him sit on a plastic wal-mart bag" All I could think of was - What if he had been pulled over? Here he was driving down the interstate at 2:30 in the morning without a shirt on and a 9 year old naked boy sitting on a plastic wal-mart bag. No way would a cop believe his story. Meanwhile, Riley is sleeping like a baby but the drunk, rednecks keep coming back to the beach every 30 minutes or so. I guess they would drop off and pick up different people. My head is hurting! Jimmy and Tucker get back about 4:00. Tucker goes right to sleep and Jimmy lays down for about 30-45 minutes. He then gets up and goes out on the lake to fish. Finally, sleep comes! All of a sudden it seemed(about 7:30-8:00) I hear "Candie, get up! There is a storm coming!" Jimmy yelling from the lake! I jump up and start gathering our stuff . The tent that took 2 hours to put up took about 10 minutes to take down! We get everything packed and as soon as we drive off the bottom falls out! Made it home safe and sound. Pulled up, went in, took showers and went back to bed. WHEW! What a trip! Can’t wait to do it again! Oh yeah, when we woke up Rider had chewed the wires on Jimmy’s trailer……