A Family Camping Trip

Once upon a time, a family of 7 decided to go on a camping trip. They packed a tent for sleeping, a small tent for gear, and bags and bags of food. At the campground they found a shaded site near the bathrooms that had a great fire pit, and set up camp.

They were something of a novelty at the campground, where they were the only tent campers in the whole place, and the only ones with 5 children. In fact, they were virtually the only ones under the age of 50! Several other campers came by on a regular basis to see how the "real campers" (their words) were making out. The children became friends with a pretty grey schnauzer named Sadie that came by every afternoon on her daily walk.

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The first night, the dad had to get up twice to chase away a curious racoon. After the second time, at 4:30 in the morning, when the mom asked if he still loved camping, he whispered enthusiastically, "of course!".

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Toward the end of the second night the mom and dad were awakened by the sound of distant thunder. It sounded ominous and was getting louder and closer by the minute. A torrential downpour began, and then lightning crackled directly overhead. The accompanying thunder boom woke up the children. They cuddled together in the tent, munching on dry cereal and making up a funny "fortunately, unfortunately" story. While they were busy making a memory, they were blissfully unaware that the tent was experiencing total rain failure. When they realized that all 3 seams were letting in water and that puddles were forming under all the children's foam pads, they piled the dry things in the driest part of the tent, piled the wet things and more breakfast food in the van, and escaped to the family lodge where they spent several hours drying out wet bedding in a commercial dryer, eating breakfast, watching cartoons, and making up games such as "ping pong pool".

They had many inquiries that day, about how they had come through the storm! Fortunately the other nights passed uneventfully. :-)

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They only left the campground twice, once to buy large containers of water after they realized the campground water tasted funky, and again to buy a fresh bag of ice for their cooler. Otherwise they stayed on the grounds and enjoyed many fun activities together as a family.

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They took hikes,

got ravenously hungry, and ate food they cooked themselves over an open fire (and sometimes they ate food the mom cooked on a camp stove).

They played putt-putt golf,

and swam every day in the beautiful campground pool.

Every afternoon the youngest and oldest members of the family would take peaceful, refreshing naps with the tent doors zipped open to let the gentle breeze blow through, while the other members of the family did quiet activities at the campsite.

They made s'mores, read stories, and fell asleep every night to the same goodnight song that the mom had sung with her family when she was a little girl. They slept like rocks. They discovered that it gets light before 7:00 AM! It was also confirmed that 3 of the children snore, which the mom had long asserted but the children had not believed until now. They went through 3 cans of mosquito repellent.

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Everyone had a wonderful time, and many special family memories were made, which was just what they had wanted. Though they did agree that they needed a new (waterproof) tent before camping again, they all were enthusiastic about doing it again!

The End.