You can't see it here, but the boy, half naked, is "resting" in our tent with Nevada during the rain. The boy had fun playing with Nevada even though, as he told her, she "is girlier than (he) thought she was."
Not a good sign before camping. As the car is packed, the food is loaded, the friends are about to pull out of their driveways, the husband turns and says, “So what am I going to use for a sleeping bag?”
Me: Um, your sleeping bag?
Adam: I don’t have one.
Me: We don’t own four sleeping bags?
Adam: No, three.
Me: What did you use last time?
Adam: I dunno.
Me: Did you borrow one from your brother?
Adam: Oh yeah. I must have.
Nice. And then when we get there:
Adam: Where’s the other Thermarest?
Me: What other Thermarest?
Adam: Don’t we have two?
Me: I didn’t think so. Is that something else you borrowed from your brother?
Adam: Oh yeah. Maybe.
They walk the line: Children were warned that if they got any closer to the fire than this, there would be consequences. Let me just say, there were consequences.
Camping actually turned out fabulous, even with a brief rainstorm and the predictable feasting the mosquitos took on Pie and me (the boys always seem strangely unaffected). We fished, swam, letterboxed. We s’mored, drank, and s’mored some more. All the grown-ups got along. All the kids took turns having their temper tantrums, so there was never more than one going on at any time.
Pie was upset that someone was going to have to sleep with her. Our tent is a “two room” tent and she wanted one room all to herself. Why, yes, you are right! This is the girl who won’t spend an entire night in her own bed at home. But plop her down in the woods, where it’s pitch dark and the animals are rustling around us, and she wants solitude. If it hadn’t meant three of us cramping into a tiny side of the tent, I would have considered it. But instead we just let her complain until she fell asleep.
And you know, of course, who got the one Thermarest, who got the comfy night’s sleep? That’s right. The Princess and the Pea. I’m not sure how the supposedly hardy child of my family had to have the Thermarest, but somehow, Pie got it. I’ll be honest: I tried to push her off. I scooched and scooched trying to knock her off the pad, but she hung tight. So I slept with a branch in my back.
And let’s be clear. It’s my Thermarest. From back in the day, before I had kids, before I had a husband, before I had a mortgage or even a graduate degree, I was a camper. Perhaps even a happy camper. And none of this car camping bullshit. The hiking in, carry-your-own-water camping.
And now? Branchville. Population: Me. We’re definitely traveling with the same gang next year. Only next year, maybe we’ll skip the tents and go straight for a nice house. Preferably on the Cape. Where no sleeping bags or Thermarests are necessary.
