In Which I Regale You With Happy Tales from our Camping Trip

Or not.

This post would be more accurately titled:

The Worst Camping Trip EVER

I am so serious.

It wasn't the campground. Although I would never go there again, because basically it was an RV park and that annoys me on many levels.

It wasn't the campfire, which we weren't able to have unless we rented a little contraption to hold the fire. So annoying.


It wasn't the nearby construction, nor the incessant beep-beep-beep noise from the trucks backing up or whatever it was they were doing all hours of the day.

It wasn't the fact that our kids woke up at 6 am every morning we were there. Maybe it was the beeping of those trucks?!?!

It wasn't the rain, although it did downpour (so no suncreen necessary, Dana!).

It wasn't a leak in our tent. Although there was a leak. But a quick trip to the store for an enormous tarp fixed that.

It wasn't the company. Although when we played Quiddler on Thursday afternoon I thought it just might come to blows over whether or not the words Mark and I were laying down were actually words. (What can I say? We play a lot of Scrabble. And they were words. We just didn't have a dictionary there to prove it.)

I could have handled all of that. Maybe not with a beaming smile and a great attitude, but I so could have done that. What made this the worst camping trip ever was this:

I got the stomach flu. First day. After lunch. Stacy sick. Apparent immediately: the flu.

Let's just say I spent a great deal of time in The Public Bathroom. Go ahead and picture the last camping locale you went to and imagine yourself there in that cold, airy, dirty cement structure of stalls. Nice, huh? So I was there, on the toilet. Or sitting on the one solitary bench in between trips to the toilet, and yes, LYING DOWN on that disgusting cement floor in a full feverish state. Mark and my mother- who intermittently kept watch over me- were appalled: "Get OFF that floor, Stacy! That is so gross." I tell you, I did not even care that it was likely the filthiest floor in the state. I just needed to lie down. And my bed was very, very far away. And also far away? The cozy rug on our bathroom floor at home. And the tent? Oh, well, the tent was a five-minute walk downhill in the pouring rain. So I promptly laid myself on the floor. At some point that evening I did make my way down to the tent but I did not sleep one second that night, I assure you. I dry-heaved in the bowl next to my "bed". And listened to the rain. And Mark snoring. And prayed that the sound of the rain pounding on the tarp might somehow lull me to sleep. It didn't.

Mercifully, sometime the following day (and just in time for that game of Quiddler), I was up and around. I still didn't have an appetite and I still felt queasy, but I was there. And can I just say for the zillionth time that I have a champ of a husband, who did all the meals and all the bathroom trips and bedtimes and every bit of everything with three kids camping while I was sick. And on top of all that he managed to walk me up the hill to the bathroom a few times, pray for me, and be there. I love that man.

And the kids had a grand time with their cousins, and loved the tent experience, rain and all, and so it was a favorable vacation for them. Although the last night Ella was in my arms weeping, "But I want to camp all over again so that you can be here and I can see you." But I think that was more because she was a tired little girl and she knew vacation was winding down and not really because she actually missed me all that much.

Some pictures?
My mom, with some OFF!, and that's our tent (who am I kidding? TARP) you see there in the background.

Roasting marshmellows for S'mores. (And I found out after we got there that my sister was responsible to bring S'mores for all of us, so I was off the hook to begin with! And believe you-me, that was the right decision, because my sister is SERIOUS about her S'mores. She does S'mores complete with the choice of Reeses Peanut Butter Cups or dark chocolate!)

Ella and me by the quasi-campfire

My handsome man