2014 Family Vacation #1 (Cue Ominous Music): Camping-ish

For nine years, we've had this great tent.  I've been camping a number of times with and without The Princess, and I love the gear we got as wedding gifts.  The Hubbs, however, has never been what you'd call an outdoorsy guy, and has yet to spend a night in our super-awesome easy-up tent.  This weekend, we had plans to go camping together for the first time ever as a family.

It rained all week, torrential downpours and lightning shows with big, rolling thunderboomers.  All week, the weather guys said to hang tight...the weekend was going to be beautiful - especially Saturday.  We were stoked, pumped, rarin' to go.  

I switched shifts on Friday so I could do some last-minute errands and packing.  We wanted to be ready to leave first thing Saturday morning.  As it was pay day and I was reaping the rewards for working sixteen hours of overtime, I treated myself to a new 2-burner propane camp stove and a few more things to make our trip easier.  We picked up camp fire food, I finalized our lists (I'm a known list freak...ask any member of my family), and I stocked the car for our morning departure.

Just after midnight, my head hit the pillow, and it felt like the night before Christmas.

Saturday morning, we headed out to a campground about 20 minutes from
home.  It was drizzling as we drove over there, but we were confident it
would clear up.  When are the weather guys ever wrong???  This should
have been our first warning.

The Princess and Piggy had a ball at the camp site,
one little girl running full-tilt from end to end while the
other loafed around on the ground.

There was a little bit of fun with the iPhone by the camp fire.

Da even joined us by the fire for a bit, even though he'd
been chewed within an inch of his sanity by the
relentless mosquitoes.  Second warning, anyone?

There was some uke time by the fire, after the first round of rain
whooshed through.  Then, the sky turned black.

The next round.  Text message from Grumpa:
"Pack up and get out.  Tornado warnings.
Just got emergency notice to take shelter."

This pretty much sums it up right here.  Flash flooding, turning our camp
site into a lake.  We packed up in seven minutes flat, leaving the tent to
pick up in the morning.  Soaked to the bone, we cautiously made our way
back to our little, cozy, dry yellow house.

The sky on the way home.  None of the pictures of the runoff came across
very well, but there were rushing roadside rivers with their very own rapids
(say that five times fast).  More than once, we had to slow to a crawl in
order to navigate through 8 or 9 inches of water on the roadway.
Downed trees, closed roads...this was a doozie.

Original dinner plans: pigs in a blanket over the camp
fire.  Modified (and highly justified) alternative: Italian
beef and roasted pepper pizza, Canadian bacon and
pineapple pizza, and Fireball whisky for the adults.  The
good news?  We did get to have s'mores before the big
storm hit, so the camping trip wasn't a total bust.

The Hubbs wasn't the only one mauled by mosquitoes.
See The Princess's new shiner? Mosquito bite.  And there
are probably 25-30 more all over her poor little legs.  She's
always puffed up like a balloon, and they were vicious
yesterday.  Should have been a clue that storms were
moving in, but hindsight is 20/20, I guess.

Coming home after picking up our tent today, our two little ladies showed
off their new found ability to share the back seat without squabbling.

After picking up the tent and stopping for ice cream and French fries, we returned home and set everything back up to air out in the back yard before the rain hits again tomorrow.  It was a bit of a lazy afternoon around here today, vegging in front of the TV while our stuff dried out enough to be packed up.  Right now, I'm sweating my knickers off and trying to cool back down after packing everything away.  Again.  But at least it's dry this time!

For a first camping trip as a family, this really sucked the big one, but we're gonna suck it up and be big about it, give it a little while to scab over and try again.  Never before have I been on such a doomed camping expedition...and hopefully never again!  Our goal for next time: stay the night without floating away.  I really don't think that's too much to ask.

In the meantime, we'll hang at home for a couple of weeks before heading back out on the open road for our first family trip to Red House.  We're going for an entire week, which is huge for us (first week-long vacation since our honeymoon - we're usually the long weekend type, jamming as much as possible into four days while still getting to relax a bit), and we're taking Piggy along.  She seems like she'll make a great traveling companion...more on that later.  We'll be holin' up with Grumma and Grumpa in a small one-bedroom cabin.  For those keeping score, that's four adults, one whirling dervish and two dogs...not to mention all our stuff.  Wish us luck!