Camping Catastrophe

My husband suggested lets go camping! I thought, what a great idea. We have never taken our girls, 5 & 2 camping before. Lets do this! The only camping site available at the short notice was a walk in campsite. It said 100 meters. He wanted to go.... I called him and said this is the only one available. He says book it so it is now booked and we are ready.

It is not easy getting ready for camping. There are a lot of things to prepare. It is amazing what goes into going camping for 2 nights. The vehicle was packed!!! I haven't been camping in years. I borrowed a tent from my parents, borrowed the air mattress. I was pretty sure we had everything.

The weather the day we left was not good. The forecast said it would rain off and on throughout the day, between 2-6pm there would be a window of just cloudiness. What can I say... It lied!


We got there and it wasn't raining. It looked cloudy, but no rain is great! We got to the campsite. I never expected this when we got there. I really imagined a walk in campsite, we walk just a bit and there it is. What do I see when we get there..... A HILL!! We have to walk up a HILL!!!!! I mean, come on. I was ok with lugging all our stuff out of the car and back and fourth but now, carrying it all up a hill. God dammit!!!

So we walk up to survey this site. It better be good is all I am thinking. We walk up the damn hill and when I get there I can not believe it again.... Good lord it is like a parking lot. We may as well set up in the parking lot. There are no trees, no separation between sites. It is by far the worst campsite I have seen. I am used to camping in a spot where you are somewhat separated from your neighbors, not so close you could eat dinner with them. I was super unhappy.

But this is what my husband wanted, he wanted to come camping. I will not lie, he was NOT happy. He didn't want to stay. I thought, ok, come on, how bad can it be. I mean, we packed up the car, we spent money on things for this trip we are here vehicle loaded. We decided to stay. We brought the tent up and had our dog and the girls running around while we set up the tent. It had been years since I set up a tent, and this isn't a tent I had ever set up before. Meanwhile I hear thunder, I tell my husband, we need to hurry up, its going to storm and we have the tent half up. I can see through the trees that the clouds are dark. All I can think is Jesus we better hurry up. I hear thunder again. So the tent isn't up all the way, I know we did something wrong with the poles, it looks funny. But the clouds are closer now. There is nothing we can do at the moment. Thank goodness we had a big tarp, we threw that over the tent and pegged it down as fast as we could. He had brought up quite a few things while I was trying to get the tent up so those were thrown in the tent and we bailed.

The clouds were almost overhead now, it was dark there was thunder, I was yelling at them to hurry down the hill. We got to the car and in went the girls and the second my husband shut his door it started to POUR!! It was quite the storm. I really didn't think it would rain so much. It was like torrential rain. There was a river coming down the parking lot. Just thinking about it now pisses me off. We sat there for awhile.

 

 



Two little girls can only sit in a car so long before the boredom sets in. They were not happy. They were starting to fight, the little one was crying. We decided, we could sit here and listen to this or we can drive across the road to the golf course café and have lunch since we obviously cannot in the rain.

It seemed that after lunch the rain had stopped. I was elated. The puddles outside were no longer collecting raindrops. We packed up and were ready to go back to the tent. The second we got out of the café, it started raining. Not a lot, not like before, but enough. We went back anyways. We sat in the car and contemplated.... Do we leave? My husband wanted to go. Lets go to Calgary he said. Calgary huh.... What about the soaking wet tent we have sitting up there. I wont lie, I thought about it, I even thought, how much is a stupid tent, we could just drive away and leave the damn thing. But then I remembered, we have stuff in it too.

Dammit!! Ok, this was gonna work. I will make this work, it wont rain tomorrow, the sun will be out, we will have a good camping trip! There was a camp shelter with picnic tables and a wood stove inside by our campsite. We walked up the hill and my husband and the girls went into the shelter to stay dry and he was going to start a fire to warm them up. I stayed out in the rain to fix the tent, get it set up property and all pegged down right and to fix the tarp. I looked inside the tent. I couldn't even believe my eyes. There was pools of water inside both front corners.


I brought ONE towel for the girls to share at the beach tomorrow. My husband is gonna lose it..... I sat inside the tent and I figured ok, I am still going to make this work, we will have a good camping trip. I got our coffee cups and started bailing water out of the tent. I got most of it out and used the towel to mop the rest up. Ok, NOW I can start on the air mattress'. I got one set up. Unrolled the other one and I was speechless. This one wasn't like the other air mattress, this one was an OLD one. It was one that needed plugs. I didn't have plugs. We had one air mattress for the four of us.

My husband said that's it. Lets go. But now, we had even more stuff up here, almost all of it. And the air mattress up. I got them all in the tent and made them all lay on the air mattress. 3 will fit. Only 3.... So who sleeps on the ground in a sleeping bag.... Well, I know for damn sure if my husband does we will not hear the end of it. I would rather die than hear him whine. So... I took the ground.

The dog is usually a good listener. Out here, running free he was like "as if I am listening to you". I brought out the leash, and wouldn't you know it. I forgot his collar, so nothing to hook the leash to. Unreal!!! How is this happening to me? The girls are complaining they are hungry and cold. My husband, straight from Italy has camped twice in his life. Does he know how to start a campfire? Not really.... Does he know how to start a campfire with wet wood? Absolutely not. So when I was done with the tent, absolutely soaked through, I started on the fire.

I was almost done with the dog. I forgot he was running around many times to be honest. I was trying to start a fire, I was cold, wet and had two little girls who were bored and stuck in a shelter being bad. This sure wasn't what I had envisioned when I drove out here. I got that fire started, We got warm. They got hungry. So I hauled everything out for dinner and sat at the picnic table and made everyone dinner.

We forgot 3 essential things this camping trip

Air mattress plugs
Dog collar
Salt!

After dinner it stopped raining. My daughter helped me with dishes and we decided to go to our campsite and make a fire. What a pain in the ass a campfire is with wet wood. Thank goodness my parents took us camping every year of my life as a child and I had made a fire many times or we would have been hooped for a fire. We were finally set to relax. Everything was good, the sun even came out. We made popcorn over the fire and I started thinking, this is going to be ok. We are going to have a good time.

Bedtime. Getting the girls to bed isn't a huge problem. Of course for little girls especially at 2 they are talkative and wanting to play so bedtime doesn't happen immediately for little ones. I cant deny I was uncomfortable from the start. The ground is hard dammit. I was worried for the girls, their hair was still damp and I didn't want them to be cold sleeping. It took about an hour and the baby fell asleep, her sister wasn't far behind.

I started to get cold, really cold!!! To the point I was almost shaking. But lets face it, there was 3 on the bed and dog, there was no room for another. I contemplated going to sleep in the car. But what if some crazy came and knocked on the door while I was there, anxiety me thought of the worst and that idea was out. I wrapped myself up in the sleeping bag as best as I could. I pulled my back and it has been hurting for the last while so laying on my back was out. Laying on my side hurt so bad on my hips. I tried to sleep, oh how I tried. I am sure I laid there a good 4 hours. I fell of and on asleep. I felt their air mattress. It wasn't what it should be, theirs was deflating. The weight of my husband on one side lifted the mattress and the baby was sliding into her sister. Our 5 yr old would wake up and cry to me that she didn't want to be in the middle. Well.... I didn't want to be on the ground. There was nothing I can do at the moment.


I told my husband how awful I felt. He said lets switch. But I knew the level of complaining. No switch. He wanted to go home, he was ready to pack up at midnight and go home. But now? In the pitch black? I dont think so. With the girls asleep we had to ride this out. To top it off there was two couples camping two spots away, so basically right beside us. They were drinking and having a good time. Great! I get it. Camping, its fun, I have been there. But tonight... After the day I had. Listening to them so loud, talking about the stupidest stuff, laughing like there was nobody else in the campground. Am I getting old? Damn rights, I am a mom of two and I went through a shit day, now I am TRYING to sleep on the cold ground meanwhile listening to these people laugh it up and make tons of nosie. I had it, I got up, 2am and walked over to their site. Needless to say after that I didn't hear what they were saying anymore. Finally!!

The night was long, the night was cold, the night was EXTREMELY awful. I had the worst sleep ever and woke up almost not being able to move. They woke up an their air mattress was deflating. I mean this was it, this was the clincher for me. I was done. I wanted to go home. There was no second night in the cards. We couldn't all sleep on the ground. No way! We got up, I thought about it lots. Should we stay the day? The beach for the girls, its going to be a nice day. But... I could hardly walk. My poor back. OMG I was in pain. The ground almost killed me. The beach was out. I felt so bad for them. This was not the camping trip I envisioned for my family. We packed up faster than I can even say, everything was down with a blink of an eye. We really had it. Before anyone else in that campground even was awake we were packed up and ready to go.

Hands down, worst campsite I have ever been to. Worst night of camping I have ever had. Will we laugh about it? Maybe one day. But not anytime soon.

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