Saturday, March 8, 2014

Camping Equipment

We were supposed to go camping this weekend with our Trail Life troop. It had been too cold to sleep at night so last night, I let the big boys sleep in their sleeping bags in the living room. This morning we got up and the boys were so excited to go out to the campsite that they packed the van for me. I tried in vain for about an hour to find an address to the campground. All I had to go on were satellite coordinates. I stared at the location on Google maps for a while and with blind faith I stepped out my front door just hoping I could find the place. Then walking the parking lot, I saw one of our neighborhood security guards. I asked him if he knew how to find this place. He was able to find it and set my GPS to take me there. YAY!

Once we arrived we set up camp. The big boys put up the play tent mostly alone. I was not about to bring our big 2 room tent for the day so the play tent worked. I made everyone lunch. It was quite a task to get them to sit still long enough to eat. Soon they were off exploring.

Skittles wanted to go fishing. He LOVES to go fishing but I have no time to take him. Even if I did, I don't know how. Skittles asked one of the dads to help him get a hook on his line. Then we walked down to the river. Skittles cast his line and hooked a tree right away. I reeled it back in and untangled it from the tree. He was struggling to cast the line so I stepped in. I don't know why though. I have been fishing a few times in my life and the only thing I remember about fishing is that I do NOT like it. Any way I tried like 3 times to cast the line and failed. Skittles had to tell me how to do it. I got it in the water. Twizzler got his line out without a problem. Hershey walked around with Skittles old broken rod. He thought he was fishing too. For a few minutes, it was peaceful.
Then Twizzler reeled his line in with what I think was a water hyacinth on the end. Then while I was pulling the plant off of the line, Skittles hooked one. I could not get the line off the plant. I sent the boys for help but the line broke when we tried to save it and we ended up giving up on fishing. 

We heard something about a hike. Skittles had his heart set on hiking for weeks. Sadly we found out that the hiking party had already left. He begged me to take him but the thought of wandering into the woods as the sole adult with 3 kids, one strapped to my back, sounded awful. I sat in my chair and wept. My poor boys. All the camping equipment in the world is no substitute for a father. 

I sat there with tears streaming down my face, feeling very alone, feeling very sorry for myself and for my boys. Then a friend walked over and talked. I cried to her about how sad I was at the whole situation. I felt better after talking. 

The boys had been riding their bikes around the tents and wanted to go to the dirt road. I moved my chair out there and let Hershey ride on his bulldozer. It was peaceful for a few minutes.

We did end up finding a mom and her son to go on a hike with us. I think she and I both thought we were setting out on a short walk but we made the mistake of letting the kids lead us. They went on and on for a long time. We chatted the whole way and that made it not seem as far. My whole body hurts. I am exhausted. I have blisters. I am glad that the kids begged me to go though. I made a new friend and the kids had a blast. They collected a BUNCH of walking sticks. Many more than they could carry easily much less use for walking. 

When we got to camp, I began to build a fire. I showed the boys how to do it log house style, using pine needles as kindling. It took a long time. They took turns blowing on the fire to get it going. We roasted hot dogs. A family who we thought was not going to make it out, came and had dinner with us. They helped us break down camp and then we went home. 

No comments:

Post a Comment