Camping Highlights?

Camping this last weekend was....well, adventurous? My parents went up first, and ended up getting stuck in their giant motor home. They called me (thank heaven for cell phones) and asked me to bring up my dad's (*HUH*) truck. They also asked me to bring up a tow chain, not a rope, a CHAIN! I immediately called my brother, who was at my parents' house, and asked him to see if he could find a tow rope and chain. After a while, he called me back to say the tow rope dad had was frayed and he could NOT find a chain.

I braved Walmart (the day before the big holiday weekend. Insane? I think so...) and found a few things in the "towing" section. I bought a new tow rope (towing up to 5,560 pounds) a tow chain (that tows up to 5,000 pounds) and a ratchet tow chain, thingy, (that tows up to 2 tons). I took all of my stuff, that I had carefully packed in my van, and threw it into the truck's extra crevices. I turned on a movie for the boys to watch, plugged in 6 of my favorite CDs and took off.

After arriving, I was shocked to find that they WERE stuck, but at least they were off the main road. We ended up staying put that night, and all of us slept in the RV.

The next day I was anxious to get my tent up (for me, it's not really "camping" unless I'm under a thin layer of nylon, hearing wildlife and rain (or snow) above me.

Within 10 minutes, we had the motor home pulled out of it's hole (not without problems though, the jack would NOT come up, but we found the manual and my dad fixed it). Then we were off to an alternate site. The place we ended up was not nearly as pretty as the spot where we'd been stuck, but it was nice. We quickly set things up and camped out. I did a LOT of relaxing, while my boys ended up playing with Grandpa (he's their hero...)

Saturday night we made a fire, with lots of wet wood, and roasted marshmallows. I have to admit, I haven't had a good toasted marshmallow in YEARS and these were heavenly. As soon as we had finished, within a minute or so, it stopped dribbling and began snowing. The flakes were quarter sized. I was going to have Jake sleep in his playpen, but since it was SO cold, I ended up letting him sleep with me...which makes a LOUSY night for me, but at least he was warm.

The next day wasn't too bad, especially considering the snow from the night before. We did our own version of church, because there weren't enough seats in the truck for everyone, and we relaxed. After church at home got out, Steve came up with my grandparents. They stayed for dinner and dessert (yummo, cobbler, my specialty) and we had fun. I haven't missed Steve like that in a long time.

The next day was beautiful! But it was also our last day. We packed up early in the afternoon and took off. On the way down the highway, my parents' motor home had a compartment open up, they began losing toys. I hurried past them and got them to pull over. I locked ALL the underneath compartments and we were off again.

Once home, I felt completely gross, and smelled of campfire, but it was a great weekend.

The funny part came after. My dad was talking to my mom about what a great weekend it was. He said that he thought the boys had fun, but that I had been a little grumpy. My mom mentioned that I had PMS. My dad stopped and said, "Oh, well, she was GOOD then!" (*giggle* No offense taken, it's true, I was grumpy, but not as bad as I have been known to be in the past when I have PMS...)

Overall, a great time and lots of fun!