Camping

or why I loath it...

So this past weekend I went camping with Gene's family. We were supposed to meet them at a camp site in GullPoint State Park at Lake Okoboji in northwest Iowa. To start out MapQuest took us through every small town between Mason City and there, mostly ones I had never head of. We arrived aroun 7:30 Friday night in almost 90 degree heat and 90 percent humidity - I was ready to turn back there. However, being the dutiful daughter-in-law I put on my happy face and went out to greet the bugs, heat, and in-laws. They had the camp entirely set up and dinner was ready to go on the fire. We got somewhat settled and had brats and beers. This was the high point of the weekend. The mosquitos then formed a layer thick enough to see, hear, smell, and taste -literally. We had them in your eyes, ears, noses, and mouths. So we moved to the main tent which had a "screened porch" to play cards. It was about ten o'clock at night by now and everyone except the boys had been up since 6 a.m., so we decided to go to bed. Foolish, foolish us. The temperature was still about 85 degrees withe the humidity about the same, oh and did I meantion that there never was and never would be any breeze because my in-laws had picked a campsite in a hollow encased with trees and overgrown grasses? Yah. So around 11 o'clock we settle in to bed - all of us, in one tent - yah 6 people, 1 tent. Joy. Our neighbors on both sides had gotten in late - like oh, at 10:30 - so they were still setting up camp, with four car's headlights, two ultrabright flashlight careening in the window, 15 screaming children, and 8 drunken adults helping. One came got settled down by midnight - ish. The other camp, oh the other camp. At 12:30 the children, who looked to be between 6 and 10, were still dumping lighter fluild on the fire to make "bonfire balls." they also were screaming constantly. The adults therefore had to raise their voices to make oridinary conversation. Ths continued until 2:00 when Gene finally asked them to shut up or he'd get the park ranger. Okay that's a slight exaggeration - he only told them to shut up. Which, with in a half hour or so they did. However, that was when all the drunks came back from the bars and proceeded to howl, yes howl, at the moon. This continued until around 3:30-4 am when Gene and I got up to go the bathroom, which was a quarter of a mile away, and get a drink, which wasn't cold. We glared at a camp of middle-aged, drunken roustabouts who bellowed for people to join them and went back to the tent. I think we had a combined half hour of sleep before we were awoken by car alarms at 5:30 a.m. We got up around 8 a.m and for some unknown reason waited an hour and a half to start breakfast, like sitting around staring at each other was going to make us feel better. After breakfast and clean-up we discovered that low and behold the camp's water main had broken and they were "looking into it." In northern Iowa this could be taken literally. This meant we had to drive a mile and a half to the nearest state park with running water to go to the bathroom. At this point Candy finally admited that something "just wasn't right" about this trip. No!! really? So, we waited for some of Jesse's friends to join us from Sioux Falls and we went to the closest lake access point, since who wants to camp in a campground that has its own beach and lake access point?!? There we spent the next two hours baking in the sun that had already reached the same 90 degree heat and 90 percent humidity of yesterday. When asked to play cards, I simply said, "My head can't function on 30 minutes sleep and with an overall body teperature of a nuclear blast." I think they got the point. Okay, that's an exaggeration too - I just said, "Too hot, too tired." They still got the point. At that point, I think they realised just how miserable I, and they as well, were. We made a deal that if we didn't have water when we got back to camp, we'd leave. Well, we had water, but in the mean time theyhad figured out that we'd probably be in for another sleepless night since the campground was jsut as rowdy and just as sweltering as it had been the night before, and only due to get louder and hotter with the drinking and partying coming that night. At this poitn we packed up camp and returned to Sioux Falls and air condtioning. When we got to the in-laws we discovered that since they hadn't given me time to put sunscreen on by back was a lovely shade of lobster. At this point Candy very innocently says, "Oh, now wouldn't you have been miserable tonight if we had stayed!"