Wednesday, October 10, 2007

I'm back. Did ya miss me? We had a wonderful time camping. Usually, I mean sometimes, nope what I really mean is ALWAYS when we go camping on Columbus Day Weekend it is cold. I have never had to use the air conditioner. Furnace yes, air no. It was around 90° the whole weekend. Which was great really. But we always bring a lot of wood for camp fires. We can't camp with out a HUGE fire. It's just wrong. We had 6 pickup trucks full of wood & our rule is to never bring any wood home. If we brought it we have to burn it. Someone always brings something to sacrifice to the fire God. This year it was me. I brought 2 old kitchen chairs & a really old saw horse. Usually we need the big fires for warmth but this year we just needed them for the ambiance. We seem to get bigger every year. This year there were 7 trailers & 32 people. Our circle around the fire was huge this time for 2 reasons.

Reason #1. There were 32 people, duh!
Reason #2. It was too hot & we couldn't stand to be near it, but had to have a fire because we brought all that wood!

We have certain things that we do every year while camping. First we make a Jack-o-bob. He is an old uniform stuffed with leaves. His name is jack-o-bob because the uniform has Bob's name on it & he has a pumpkin for a head. He is a guest around the fire all weekend. This year the Princess & a few other little ones got to make him. Apparently the older kids are too big for this now. They must of really grown up because they made him last year!

We also have a book exchange. The women who go camping love to read. We all bring our books that we have already read & put them out on a picnic table. This year we had 2 picnic tables. We all go through & pick out what we want. Then we tell everyone else in the campground to come & look. One of us takes the leftovers home & gives them to the library or something.

Then there is the potluck dinner we have. It is usually on Sat night but this year we had 2. Saturday & Sunday. It was yummy. There is always so much food too. You never go hungry when camping. I think I spent around $6000.00 on food this year at Aldi. The loved me in there! Didn't want to run out of food. What would happen if we had to stay an extra day or something awful like that? I can't have us starving out in the middle of no where(actually no where is about 10 minutes from town). What if we couldn't get to WalMart? We could starve. That's why I had to spend all that money at Aldi. It was for my families safety. I wonder if I could convince Pookie that's why I spent all that money at the scrapbook store. You think he would buy it when I tell him it's for my families safety? Probably not. Might be worth a try though.

We did have a lot of fun. Then we had to come home. That's the bad part. Packing up to leave. We camp about 1 hour from home & I drove the Tank pulling the trailer so Pookie could let Queenie drive home. Better him then me. Give me the trailer any day. Once home the unpacking of the trailer starts. I hate that part. It always takes we weeks to get all the stuff out of there. And I never seem to get it all. I always seem to forget something food related in there.

Some important things to remember:

Spaghetti O's don't freeze well. Well they actually freeze just fine, but you can't eat them after that.

Cans of Pepsi explode when frozen.

Fruit snacks that have been frozen never taste quite the same.

These are things that the normal person would not do more then once. Especially the frozen Pepsi. I have left Pepsi in the camper over the winter several times. Not one of my better moments. But I'm sure that will be the one I am remembered for.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I so like the picture of Jack-O-Bob, I believe he was camping with us also.

Mom of 4 said...

We have been camping as a group for years & Jack-O-Bob has always been there. It just wouldn't be camping if he wasn't with us!