Camping Part 1

Sometimes it takes an adventurous camping trip to make me kick up another blog post. I’ve always enjoyed writing about my kids and I have plenty of stories to share about them but the creative energy isn’t always there to put what I’m thinking into words in this post-partum blur. I don’t always know my lefts or rights on most days, not to mention east’s or west’s so actually forming a sentence and typing it out is exceptionally challenging in my sleep-deprived fog.

I love summer time and I try to pack in as much adventure every summer as I possibly can. Having a baby in the middle of June, as wonderful as babies are, kind of puts a damper on summer plans. It’s the same song every day with Willow, sometimes the second verse, sometimes a little bit louder and sometimes a little bit worse. We feed, we burp, we bounce, we walk around, we hand her off to a willing older child so we can eat something ourselves, then we feed, we burp, later, rinse, repeat. I have been so spoiled with easy newborns that it was a bit of a culture shock to have a fussy one. But she is more than cute and this makes up for it.

Summer has sped by at record speed and I decided that we should try to squeeze in one fun adventure before it ends. Our kids love camping and they have been such a big help to me this summer so this was going to be a little thank-you to them.

So last week, we loaded up the sleigh, with not a single cubic inch of space left over and hit the road north. Destination:  Lamb’s Resort on the North Shore. I had made a list and checked it twice and was absolutely certain I wasn’t forgetting anything. I had all seven children, one husband, one trailer jammed with bikes, trikes and bike trailers, two tents, one crib, four air mattresses, five sleeping bags, one teddy bear, one ratty blanket that is Ruby’s most prized possession and three days worth of easy to prepare food.

After stopping for a bathroom break about an hour north and experiencing our favorite type of travel which is crawling through road construction without properly working air conditioning, I came to a realization. I audibly gasped and Chet, my night-shift working husband, popped his head up from his slumber. I forgot our pillows!

“Did the kids bring theirs?” he asked. “Just steal one of theirs.”

“I’m not stealing my kids’ pillows!” I said. They were responsible enough to remember their pillows, unlike their mother and I wasn’t going to take them away.

He went into a mini-rant about how back in his day, he slept in a sleeping bag on the bare ground in -10 degree wind-chills with no pillow and how our kids should also suffer the same fate. Then he went back to sleep.

Absolutely not. I pulled into the nearest Walmart and purchased two pillows and two pillow cases. I proudly walked back out to the vehicle and loaded them up.

“Two?” he asked.

“Yes.” I said. “Both for me. You don’t need a pillow, right? You camp, I glamp.”

We traveled through Duluth and spotted the giant rubber ducky in the harbor, as well as the horrific crowds that were there to see it. The kids (and I) love driving through Duluth and oohed and ahhed at all there was to see. A few hours later, after driving the windy road along Lake Superior, as well as a quick pit stop at Betty’s Pies, we were finally at Lamb’s. Google Maps told me it would only take me 4.5 hours to get there and as much as Google seems to know about all of us, it severely underestimated the fact that we have seven kids. And that I didn’t grab pillows. And that I was pulling a trailer and was driving very responsibly, aka slowly. It took us close to 6 hours to get there.

I checked us in and purchased a bag of gold-plated firewood, or that’s what it should have been anyway for that price. Since we lived too far away to legally bring our own firewood and were fresh out of construction lumber scraps, we had no choice but to buy local firewood. And local firewood ain’t cheap.

We drove around looking for our campsite. When I had made the reservation, I asked for a large, private campsite. “I have just the perfect one for you!” the lady on the phone said.  We found it, number 47. It was large. It was private, on three sides, one of those sides being the dump where all the old picnic tables and lawn equipment go to die. And it was about four feet from the people next to us, who were setting up their camp. I didn’t dare to watch their faces as we unloaded our kids, one by one. I was only imagining their horror.

The camping chairs were the first to be set up, as those had been stored on top of the kids’ heads on the ride up. Chet chuckled when he saw all eight of them set up around the fire. It looked like we were setting up for church. A truck pulled up as we were setting up the tents and it was the owner. He welcomed us to the campground and then pointed and laughed at all 39 bikes still piled on the trailer.

“I got a couple of free tents if you want ‘em.” he told Chet. “You look like the most worthy candidate here.”

What in the world is that supposed to mean? Just because we look like the Beverly Hillbillies doesn’t mean we want free tents! Actually, just kidding, we do want free tents because we like free stuff.

“They’re by the dumpster.” he said. “Help yourself. Might have to buy a few new parts for ‘em.”

Never mind. I like free but not that free.

I sat down to feed Willow and Chet worked on getting the big tent set up. As he assembled the poles, the stretchy rope connecting them snapped. (Maybe we needed a free tent after all.) But being the handy-man that he is, he was able to fashion a knot in the rope to hold the two loose ends together. Amazing, I know. He continues to amaze me, all these years later.

Off to my left, the kids giggled as they discovered wild raspberry bushes right in our campsite. As they eagerly picked and ate raspberries, Avery approached me on my right and handed me a rock. Someone had drawn a face on it and I smiled. How nice! Then I turned it over and discovered that whoever drew the face had also drawn something quite inappropriate on the other side of the rock. I threw it into the woods. What a nice welcome to camp.

One thing I didn't forget was a bucket of sand toys. Even though our campsite lacked sand, the kids have spent so much time excavating our driveway that they have become experts in creating their own sand. While these kids dug around in the rocks, Piper was complaining of a sore throat and stomach ache. My heart sank a little; Avery had just gotten over strep throat and since those two share a bed, I figured Piper would get it next. I just didn't expect it to pop up now when we were camping. I gave her some ibuprofen and kept an eye on her.

Chet rounded up the kids on their bikes to go explore the campground and I noticed Milo was looking a little green. He suddenly bent over, holding his stomach.

“I think I’m gonna be sick!” he said.

To be continued…