Some of you may recall my post about the first camping trip of 2012. The enormous spiders, the kamikaze June Bugs. If not please check it out. I really thought that that was a standout for, "Worst Camping Trip Ever".
Turns out I was wrong.
This year, on the same trip, to the same park, to the exact same site, it proved to be even wilder.
After the dock spiders in the bathroom last year I swore I was done with tent camping forever. I refused to go camping this year without my own toilet inside my own camping trailer. No more 15 minute inspection of the premises before peeing. No more tip toes across cold wet grass with a dying flashlight at 4:30 in the morning. No more tripping over zippers that won't quite go all the way down. NO!
Thus "Trail-y" was purchased.
"Trail-y"
My kitchen
The boys beds and (cue chorus of Angels), my bathroom
The layout (in case you're curious) (it's the bottom one)
I am ready to camp like a champ! Oh my Gosh, I just made that up and I love it! Camp like a champ. That's just great. But I digress.
Friday evening we roll up to the campground feeling like kings. First thing to do is fill up our water tanks. Now, we are first time camper owners, so we don't exactly know what we're doing. We pulled up to the filling station, (aka, the hose) and opened the cap labeled "water", and started filling. We didn't quite know how long this should take or how we would know when the tank was full, so we just let it run for ten minutes and then stopped. Job no. 1, complete!
Then we headed off to the group camping site. Our first "set up" was not without problems. We learned that it is best to level your camper before you put down the little stabilizing feet, because otherwise they will get bent horribly out of shape as the camper shifts and levels out. Lesson learned. Then we learned that we did not actually put any water into the tank, because we had the hose in the wrong place. Oh well, I wasn't thirsty anyway. We also learned that because we didn't have an electricity hookup, we also did not have any air conditioning. The battery and propane will run everything in the camper, except for the air conditioner. So, while all the rest of our group slept in cool, breezy tents, the Lambert's literally stewed in our own sweat all night. The inside of the camper was about 43 degrees and we were parked in such a way that no breeze came in our windows. Interestingly enough, when we complained about the sweat lodge conditions the next morning, not one person felt bad for us. Not one!
Jake decided that one night of crappy non-sleep was his limit, and so, the next day he decided to slip into Canadian Tire are purchase a $1200.00 frickin generator. Don't even get me started. There is not enough room in the blog-o-sphere for me to argue about this purchase, but he was just a'beamin with joy as he plugged the camper in and fired up that air conditioner.
We also decided to fill our water tank for real. Unfortunately this had to be done by hand, hauling big jugs of water to the little tiny hole at the back of the trailer and pouring them in one by one using a makeshift funnel cut out of an old pop bottle.
Now, by this point it was getting close to dinner time. Some of the men were in the kitchen tent preparing dinner, but Jake and I were dealing with a water leak on the inside of the camper. Water was trickling out of the freshly filled tank and running across the floor. Hmmmm. Not good. While we tried to figure out this problem we stared to hear thunder. It looked like everyone would be eating dinner under the big shelters our group had put up.
While the thunder got closer and louder and the rain started, the kids coloured at the table while Jake and I tried to stop the water leak. There was a compartment we need to get into, but it was screwed shut, so despite the now heavy rain and thunder (and maybe a tiny bit of lightening), Jake dashed out into the weather to go procure a screwdriver from one of the other men. Well, he was gone about 2 minutes when all hell broke loose.
I was coloring with the kids. They were very nervous about the thunder and lightening which had become so loud it almost blasted the eardrums. I was trying to shake it off and say, "Wasn't that loud? Cool!" to which my children replied that no, it was very not cool, and they didn't like it one bit, and where was Daddy, and how could you send him out in this storm? I was just assuring them that Daddy was gonna be fine and so were we and hey, look at Bernie (the dog). He was under the table, ("No he's not cowering in fear. He's just vibrating. All dogs do tha,t don't they)? I tried not to let them see that Scrappy, (the other dog), was literally trying to climb into my clothes he was so scared. Try to think about the loudest thunderstorm you've ever heard. We were at the center of it. Suddenly a massive gust of wind came wailing through our campsite, which is essentially a big field surrounded by tall trees. There was an ear splitting crack and then a huge tree fell out of the forest, smashing into the ladies outhouse, breaking the roof and exploding chunks of wood everywhere.
Guess the ladies have to pee in the bush now! The roof cracked in half!
Then it occurred to me. Prior to our first camping trip of the season, it had been on my "to do list" to call the insurance guy and make sure our trailer was insured. It occurred to me that I hadn't actually crossed that off my "to do list" just yet.
So, when trees started falling out of the forest not 20 feet from where my beloved Trail-y was parked, I suddenly joined the children in deciding that this storm was most definitely NOT cool! I hugged my children tight, and while they prayed for our lives and for the life of their Daddy, (who had still not returned with the screwdriver), I prayed for Trail-y. "Please, dear sweet Jesus don't let a tree fall on my camper. Please! Oh why didn't I call the insurance guy!"
The rain was so thick, the wind so fast and the thunder and lightning so loud we couldn't see or hear anything more that 20 feet from the camper. We were all about to hide under the table when out of nowhere Jake comes barreling in the door. We were happy to see him, but I stared hollerin. "Are you crazy!!!??" No joke, it was like being in the middle of a hurricane and he decided that it was a good time to go running across an open field in the middle of a lightening storm. Sheesh, some guys!
"But I had to" he says. "I got hit in the head with a tree!"
Apparently he didn't quite get to asking for a screwdriver when the storm blew up, so he took refuge under one of the shelters. He was waiting there for things to blow over when he heard a huge crack and saw a tree starting to come crashing towards him. As he bolted from the shelter he felt something hit the back of his head. Sure enough the was a big bump and scratch on the back of his head.
Thunder, wind, lightening and rain raged for about ten more minutes before things started to calm down. The kids were in hysterics, Jake was checking out his head and I was still praying nothing would hit my camper. When the storm finally cleared we got to have a good look around. People started crawling out of their cars to assess the damage. It took me a few minutes to realize that our shelters were completely gone. Yes, the ones Jake had been hiding under! The kitchen tent was gone and two tents had been uprooted and thrown all the was across the field.
This tree came down directly between Bob's tent and car! Lucky!
This tree fell out of the bush
This is the branch that hit Jake in the noggin!
This is the same branch. Jake had been sitting right on the corner of that picnic table!
Right there! One more centimeter and it would have cracked his skull!
This is hard to see but this is the tree Jake heard falling. It is massive. Like a freakin oak tree or something!
This is what is left of one of the shelters. I don't know if we even found the other one. This is the one Jake had been sitting under.
The beige and green tent was the kitchen tent. Turns out that although the tent got blown over, dinner was still on the stove! So, we moved dinner over to Trail-y and everyone ate there! Yeah Trail-y!
Everyone was saying how amazing it was that no one had been hurt. We all must have said it about 50 times until Jake reminded us that, actually he did get hit in the head with a tree. He got checked out at the local hospital and he's fine. And so is Trail-y. Whew! We packed up and headed home that night. We didn't get to use the $1200.00 generator, or the 80 gallons of water we manually filled the tanks with, which we had to dump on the ground. But the kids were freakin, so home we went. The kids still get mad if we even talk about thunder storms.
Well, I'm going to assume that we worked all the bugs out on this trip, and that the rest of the summer our camping days will be sunny during the day and cool at night. Our camper will work perfectly and everything will run smoothly, and I swear, any day now I'm gonna get around to calling the insurance guy.
Happy camping!
Michy
