GroshLink

One of my dad's favorite authors is Pat McManus who writes on the hilarious misadventures of life in the outdoors. His book, A Fine and Pleasant Misery, describes his ambivalence towards camping. Last night, at 3:40am dad turned to me, smiled, and said, a fine and pleasant misery. Here's why.

We've been wanting to take Hayley and Ellen camping and with the first day of fall upon us and the evenings turning cooler we were feeling a sense of urgency, sort of a now or never. With an eye and a deaf ear on the forecast we pushed forward with our plans. We gobbled down our supper at home (one less hassle in the woods), threw the gear in the back of the pickup and rushed down to the farm where there is a lovely little campsite cleared in the woods. We were particularly rushing to get camp set up before dark and because dad was due to take his parents to church at 6:10pm. Mom, dad, and the girls piled in to the pickup while I went ahead on the bike (no room in the truck). I stopped my bike at the edge of the woods thinking that's where the truck would park too. But I didn't realize that the mighty 4 wheel drive would take on the forest path. So I followed the red bohemoth until it stopped, seemingly foiled by a fallen log across the path. But NO, the engine revved, the beast jostled, and with a might roar, leapt over the log. At the campsite we began pulling gear from the pick up when it was discovered that the mighty roar we had heard was actually to sound of the front tire exploding . . .

At this point, mom made an executive decision -- she would ride the bike home, get the car and take Grandma and Grandpa to church. Dad somewhat sheepishly acquiesced. While mom was gone dad and the girls and I set up the tents. When mom returned dad was ready to set up his tent when he realized he had no plastic to put underneath it. It's worth mentioning at this point that mom did specifically ask dad before we left if he had plastic to put under the tent. So dad drove the car home to get plastic. While he was gone, we women made fire (primal grunts). This involved splitting some wood with a hatchet to make kindling. No one lost an eye.

Dad returned with the plastic (and water and paper towels which we had forgotten, a spotlight, and a chainsaw), set up his tent and set to work to put the spare tire on the truck. Meanwhile the obligatory making of smores commenced. I was proud of myself for letting Hayley and Ellen have their fill rather than limiting them to one smore and one extra marshmallow like usual. Good mom! So dad changed the tire which had a gash several inches long in the side of it and Ellen lamented that Grandpa was missing all the fun. Well, he didn't miss all the fun -- he did get to dig a latrine! Tom called me after mom arrived at the house on her bike and asked if there was anything he could do to help. Kind of him to offer. I called him later after Mom and Dad both made trips back to the house. He had the audacity to doubt that we would stay in the woods the entire night.

Eventually Ellen finally convinced me to go to bed. I made her wait until 8:45pm and we made our mandatory visit to the latrine -- yes, you must go! As we crawled into our sleeping bags, three abreast on the air mattress I was amazed at how quickly the girls settled into La La Land. I was looking forward to a good night's sleep -- after all, I don't get in bed by 9pm too often.

At 11:30pm I was awakened by Ellen's coughing. Eventually I aroused her to take a sip of water, hoping that would squelch the irritation. On and on we laid there, drifting in and out of sleep, awakened by fits of coughing and choking. Now, Ellen has been known to cough so violently that she causes herself to throw up. I was sleeping right next to her. Believe me when I say that the last thing I wanted was for her to throw up in the tent and probably on me. At some point I convinced Ellen to take the cough medicine that she had refused to take at bedtime. I thought it was in my bag in the tent, but not finding it there I pulled on my boots to check at the picnic table.After looking for awhile I checked my bag again and found it :-)

Thankfully Ellen took it without issue. I've heard of studies recently that say that cough medicine has no significant effect on coughs. Now I think I believe those studies. Ellen continued to hack and choke. Some time later, after many sips of water, the inevitable happened. At least it's not raining, I thought to myself as I pulled on my boots again. We started down the path to dad's latrine when the hacking overcame her and she threw up. Hallelujah! It didn't happen in the tent! She continued to vomit her way down the path while telling me that this is the worst night of her life. To my credit, I kept my wits about me and did my best to comfort her. When we got back to the tent after doing our business (hey, I was there anyway) and snuggled into our sleeping bags she said, Mommy, why can't we stay another day?

Well, the coughing continued, but at least now I was comforted by the knowledge that if she threw up again at least there wouldn't be much left in her stomach. As I lay there listening to the crickets and other chirping insects it started -- the soft pitter patter of rain drops hitting the leaves and tent. Oh Bother! as Pooh would say. Hopefully we'll stay dry in the tent, but crawling out of the tent in the morning into a wet, soggy wood was not something I looked forward to. Then, a flash of lightening and low rumble of thunder.Hope it doesn't get too bad, I wished. Thankfully Ellen didn't seem to be fazed by the storm. And then, from the Grandparent Tent comes the voice of Dad. Theresa, do you want to leave? I thought he was being sarcastic. Even when I'm having a miserable night, I at least want to stay in my bed. The thought of waking up Hayley (who somehow managed to stay asleep throughout this entire ordeal), getting in the car and hopefully getting everyone back to sleep once we got to the house did not immediately appeal to me. But Dad said we're going, so we went. We each took one essential -- Ellen her blankie, Hayley her Moo Moo, and I my cell phone. Thankfully we now had the car available for all of us to travel together, because I certainly wasn't about to ride a bike back to the house at 3:30am. To my surprise the girls handled the abrupt transition quite well and settled into bed without too much difficulty. I, on the other hand, was now wide awake and after lying in my own bed listening to the monitor where I could hear Ellen continue to cough and sputter I moved to the sofa with a magazine. That did the trick and soon I was sleeping peacefully.

In the morning, well, later in the morning, I awoke to a chipper family atmosphere. Mom, Dad, and Hayley headed back to the campsite to cook breakfast and I waited for Ellen to wake up after which I took her to the campsite. Ironically, we now had 3 vehicles at the campsite. The rain had ended and it wasn't even very cold. We enjoyed our breakfast of pancakes and bacon and since the tents were soaking wet we packed everything else and left them for later in the day. With a somewhat vengeful look on his face, dad took the chainsaw to the fallen log that proved so fatal the evening before. He even identified and sliced off the sharp knot that had slashed the tire.

I've heard that you can never expect a camping trip to go without a hitch. Something always goes wrong and those are the things that make the memories and that rekindle laughter in later years. Perhaps camping is a microcosm of life -- things will go wrong. You can count on it.. But how you respond to the challenges and frustrations is what really counts. Are you defeated by them, or do they make the memories of your life?