Count Down to Camping

A moment of clear skies. That's Bella on the blanket.


Last year when I was almost 7 months pregnant we went on a family camping trip. Peter and I hadn't been since 1995BC(before children). We wanted to share our love of the great outdoors with them. We found a nice campsite not too far away. For anyone familiar with our area we were in Plymouth, you know pilgrims, yes that Plymouth. OK, so we have the spot ,all we have to do is pack up everything we own and hit the road.

Smooth, is the word to describe how everything was going. We got there safe and sound, set up in record time. We are real campers, we use a tent! Actually we're poor campers... we would love a camper. but, we are not complainers! Our tent was up, the toys were out, the kids were happy.Something had to give. Momentarily,a very nice "neighbor" came over to our site. I'm thinking, Oh, how nice she's going to introduce herself to us, maybe even invite us over for marshmallows.
Well she was nice, but she came with a warning not an invitation. Basically, take cover, a WHOOPER of a storm is headed this way. Oh, yeah, and what she meant by take cover was get in your car and drive someplace safe, your tent is not going to be enough.(she had a trailer house).
WHAT!!!!!!!!!! OK, no one panic, it can't possibly be as bad as she says it's going to be. No problem, it was supper time anyway. We'll just go into town have something to eat and ride out the storm. We'll probably be able to roast some marshmallows later in the evening. Sounds like a plan , right? WRONG! Yes the storm was as bad as she said. As we were sitting in the restaurant the weather reports kept getting worse and worse. Warnings like, don't go out if you don't have to, severe weather alert, oh, yeah and my personal favorite, tornado sitings in the area. WE DON'T GET TORNADO'S!!!!!!!
This is what we get for trying to share our love of camping with the kids. We stayed in the restaurant for a long as possible, but eventually we had to head back to the campsite. Peter and I were holding our breath....was the tent still standing? Yes she was! YIPPEE!
We thought we had made it through the worst of the storm, but that night , all HE-- broke loose. Needless to say I didn't sleep one minute, the winds were so bad, I just keep waiting for one of the many very tall pine trees that we were surrounded by to come crashing down. The rains were intense and relentless. All I kept thinking was that we were going to be front page news in the morning paper...Family of Six Washed Away in Storm.
Well, morning came, I did a head count, all present and accounted for. Ready for day two...


So, after all that ,you would think we would sell our tent and camping stuff to any bidder. NO, not us. We plan another trip. Now there are 7 of us, and we're going a little further. New Hampshire this year.We leave on the third, please pray for us!