Disappointment

Summer is winding down here, although weather-wise it doesn't really feel like it.  William starts school (1st grade!) on Wednesday next week.  Amelia starts the following Tuesday (pre K) and I start the Tuesday after that (GED, still).  We have our summer checklist pulled out and we have checked off everything with one exception.  Time is getting scarce if we are going to make CAMPING happen!

Last Thursday, we realized the weekend weather was going to be camp-able.  What that means is that it will be cool enough that we can sleep at night and comfortable temperatures through the night.  It also means the daytime temperatures are cool enough that we can hike/play/wander/climb/hang out without wishing we could sit in our air conditioned car and cool off. 

So, we tentatively planned on camping Saturday night into Sunday.  Friday night there was a strong chance of rain.  While that isn't a huge problem, it isn't fun to camp wet.  It is really not fun to camp while wet with 3 whining kids.

Saturday morning we spent devoted to preparing and packing up the car for the trip.  Not surprisingly, there is A LOT of work that goes into prepping for a camping trip and it is quite time consuming.  It might be why we don't do it more often.

John made hundreds of trips to the car and one trip to the store.  I packed and repacked stuff the kids unpacked.

After Gemma napped, we loaded up the kids in the car and set out to the park.

It is a 40 minute drive one way to our favorite localish camping park.

We pulled up to the camping station to buy our camping permit for the night.....and they were full.  No campsites available.  Apparently, there is a lot of flooding in the southern portion of Missouri and many people came north for their camping adventures.  I wanted to pull forward and roll down the back windows on the car so the campground host could have the pleasure of informing the backseat that there was no room in the inn.  I wanted to cry. (I had just spent 7+ hours of getting ready to camp and found out there would be no camping.  Boo.)

 The campground host did not have information available about other campgrounds nearby.

There wasn't any wireless in the park, so we couldn't research alternatives right there.

We finally had signal enough when we reached the highway, although here is a piece of advice for you:  When traveling 65+ miles per hour, it is not the best time to have a discussion and make any type of decision.  Especially when you have 3 crying kids in your backseat.  Even if one of the three is only crying because the others are crying. 

I made a valiant effort and called 1 local campground (number no longer in service), found another local campground (no contact information available), found a state park 40 minutes the opposite direction (contact number went straight to voicemail), and the state park reservations center (who helpfully offered to make me a reservation for Tuesday.  Because they only make reservations 2 days in advance.  No way to know about availability for today.  Sorry.).

So, we went home and unpacked the van.  We unpacked the van in a very crabby fashion because we were very crabby about not going camping.

We discussed camping out in the backyard, but with the hill down to the forest taking up 97% of the backyard, it would have been uncomfortable for the person in the southern end of the tent as everyone would end up there by midnight.  Or, we could elect to pitch the tent on the patio.  Which is a very hard surface to sleep upon and could result in ripping the floor of the tent.  Did I mention we have a brand new tent?  We've never slept in tent?  It is 2 years old and we've never slept in it.

Plan B included: grilling some burgers, tater tots and making s'mores over our new fire pit in the backyard.  We sat in our camping chairs around the fire and just tried to keep Gemma out of the fire.  We roasted the specialty flat marshmallows John acquired for s'more making and spent time together.  It was lovely, although it wasn't camping.



*It was mentioned by one of us that it might be good to have a reservation.  The other adult disagreed....or maybe just didn't think it was necessary.  Although the first adult was CORRECT in that we needed a reservation, by the time we decided to camp, it was to late to make a reservation.  So I will admit that although one of us was CORRECT, it wouldn't have helped.  No names used to protect the person who was wrong.