Our Camping Adventure

We made it back! The trip was an overall success. Although I had a pretty good time, I will NEVER go camping again while I am pregnant. As nice as it was during the day, it just wasn't worth getting through the night. I literally got up to pee 8 times Friday night! I am not exaggerating. I counted. I didn't get much sleep, so there wasn't anything better to do. By the time I started to drift off to sleep, I had to pee again. I would roll myself out of the air mattress, unzip the tent door, re-zip it behind me, then find a place off in the woods to pee, come back to unzip the tent door, re-zip it behind me, and crawl back into the air mattress. It's not easy getting this big 'ol pregnant belly in and out of an air mattress that is so low to the ground. The "bathrooms" (I use this term loosely here, as it is a wooden shack with a toilet sitting over a deep dark, incredibly stinky hole.) were too far away to venture off to by myself in the middle of the night. Saturday night, I cut off all liquids 3 hours before bed time, which did get me down to 5 pee trips.

We were planning on staying until Monday, along with one other couple, but by Saturday morning, I knew I wasn't going to make it that long. I decided that it would be better to leave on Sunday morning with everyone else. I felt bad, I knew the other couple wanted to stay another night, but they understood. It was just too much for a pregnant chick.

Other then the early morning rain on Saturday, the weather actually turned out pretty great. The sun was shining for the majority of our stay, and it was even nice enough to do a little swimming in the lake. I didn't swim, but I did stick my feet in the water, which I kinda thought was freezing, but it didn't seem to bother those with alcohol in their system. The boys brought their softball gloves and bat and there were washers.

I hate to say it, but camping just isn't the same when you are completely sober the entire time. Not only does it give you something to do at night when its dark and you are mostly just sitting around the campfire, but it makes getting through the night easier as well. I had never really thought about it before, I guess because I have never stayed sober for an evening while camping. But being completely sober, gives a whole new meaning to the dark when you are out in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere.

First of all wondering off to pee is a little more difficult when sober. I never had any problems with this task before. Never even thought twice about it. You just go off somewhere, behind a tree or a bush, you squat down, ya pee, ya come back. When I am sober, I am suddenly really concerned about all of the bugs that might jump up and bite my ass or my cooter. Or the poison ivy that I might be squatting a little too close too. Or the ticks that are jumping out of the trees and landing on me. This has never been a concern before. I have no choice but to blame it on being sober. Also when you have a good buzz going, you can just crawl into the tent and pass out. When I am sober, it is suddenly more important to complete all of those bed time tasks, like brushing my teeth, washing my face, taking out my contacts. Then there are all those creepy noises during the night that I had never really noticed before. At one point, I could have sworn I heard someone off in the woods sharpening their knife! I was so grateful when I started to hear the deep, loud "jug-o-rums" from the chorus of the bullfrogs, which finally would drown out everything else.

Then there were the ticks. I pulled two out of myself. One in the crevice between my thigh and hoo-ha, and one from my right butt cheek. Amy found 8-10 on her, and almost everyone else got atleast 2. So far Amy has pulled 50+ out of their dog Louie since they got back. They had to take him to their groomer for a tick bath. Poor guy. After we got home, before getting in the shower, Joe found one on each of his butt cheeks. He didn't get the head out of one of them, when he pulled them out, so I had to go in after it with some tweezers. That had to hurt!

Other then during the night, and the ticks, I did have a really good time during the day. The lake was beautiful and it felt good to spend so much time outside enjoying nature. We made some pretty awesome food too. We had huge community breakfasts in the mornings and some yummy lunches and dinners. Saturday night, Joe grilled up some porterhouse steaks he had brought along for us. They were so good, they just melted in your mouth. Everyone brought sides to share, oriental salad, beans and twice baked potato salad. And of course, you can't go camping without s'mores.

Here is Matt standing on the "stage" playing some guitar for us.

Jeremy and Louie:

Dakota, guarding me and Joe's tent:

Slugger and Louie:

We had all 5 of our tents all lined up in a row.

Part of the 25 acre lake:

My sister Erin, sun bathing near the lake:

The Campfire:


Louie had to have his own chair too:

On our way to the campgrounds, we drove through the wreckage from a recent storm that came through the town. The damage was devastating. We were really worried about what the campgrounds were going to look like once we got there, and if it was going to be safe for camping. Somehow the campsites were still in tact, but it seemed all of the forest around it was covered with fallen trees and debris. If you click on the pictures to enlarge them, you can see far off into the background, all of the trees that were down everywhere. They were ripped out of the ground exposing their huge root balls. These pictures do not do justice for how much damage had taken place. I had never seen anything like it before.





I was so glad to get back on Sunday, to take a shower and sleep in my own bed. And since we came back a day early, it was nice to have the entire day on Monday to just hang out and relax. I hope everyone else had a great weekend! Now it's back to work. Boo.