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This past weekend, I took the family on a camping excursion. There is a campground close to our place called Granite Hill that is known for its Halloween festivities—that and the annual blue grass festival, which attracts big name stars, but that’s in August. This trip was planned and agreed upon in July, and the guest list included my family (4), brother-in-law’s family (5), sister-in-law’s family (5), BIL friend of the family (3), 2nd set of BIL friends (3), and one other random family that I don’t really know how they fit in(3). So, a total of 23 people. We blocked off the tent sites of an entire section of the campground except two sites, which were previously booked. We didn’t know this, but this campground is so popular that people reserve their slots for the Halloween weekend 364 days in advance.
Now, of these 23 people(13 of whom are adults), 20 of them are Columbia, Maryland natives, with myself and my two children being the only two country bumpkins. And how many of them have camping experience? ONE. My brother-in-law’s father-in-law. Lorenzo, tagged along (probably recognizing the potential for a CF (Cluster*you-know-what*) when he saw it) and he is a seasoned veteran camper. As Friday evening camp setup progressed, it became clear that it was pretty much going to be him and I serving the rest of the group as far as tent set up, fire maintenance and food prep. Bugger. That was CF1.
CF2: Last year, it stayed warmer much later into the year. This year, it was looking to be between 34-38 degrees both nights we were staying and we had a bunch of comfort loving-city dwellers (and 6 of the 10 children under 6) in borrowed, mildew smelling tents and slumber party quality sleeping bags. A bed check revealed that only Lorenzo’s tent was prepared with appropriate sleeping gear, including heavier sleeping bags and a thermal base (i.e. an air mattress or some such so their rear-ends are not parked right on the cold ground). So, at 8:00 PM on Friday, since we were in my neck of the woods, I had to organize a group Wal-Mart trip, with the following message: “Look, y’all need to get something between you and the ground and you all need something over top or you’re gonna wake up with ice on your nose. 2nd, any hope you had of this being some romantic get away, and that you’re gonna score when the kids are asleep, forget it. You need to have the kids in the sleeping bags between you so they don’t freeze.) Duh.
CF3: Not a one of these people have ever built a camp fire or prepped food outside of a back yard fire pit or a hibachi. So, Lorenzo and I ended up prepping food all weekend for everyone. I'm sure many of you all have prepped food at a campsite for many people, and know that trying to keep the line moving on that scale is hard work, and it pretty much means that the cook doesn’t get to eat because the non-campers are toofocused on themselves to set any food aside, and most of them underestimated proper food quantities. This means that on both mornings, I prepped 3 lbs of bacon and got none of it. I essentially lived on beer and s’mores. I’m especially peeved because it was supposed to be each family fending for themselves, but to my knowledge only the two fires ever got lit. I pre-prepped the ingredients on Friday AM and assembled and cooked this awesome stew with diced steak and sweet sausage in an 8 qt dutch oven it was gone in like 3 minutes. By the way, I love my dutch oven; it ain't pretty, as I inherited it from my grandfather and it’s 40 years old, but it cooks a good meal. As it happened, my campsite and Lorenzo’s campsite were the two ends of a horseshoe, so people were just migrating between fires, filling their bowls, the freeloaders.
CF4: As luck would have it, remember where I said that our group had all but two of the sites in our little horseshoe? Well, the two sites that were right in the middle of the “U” bend of the whole thing were these two families who I'm sorry to say are the reason people believe certain things about outdoorsmen. They rolled in driving their pick-ups, with the beds filled with 30 pack cubes of bud and coors light and lo about 8:00 PM, after we smelled some questionable fumes coming from their direction, what should greet our ears? Freebird. Oh yeah, baby, we were in for a loooong night. They had the full rotation on for us; Hank, Hank Jr., Skynard, Zepplin, CCR, and lots of other predictable stuff (and most of it stuff I like under normal circumstances), and they were whooping, hollering, cussing, swearing, fighting and peeing in plain view of the other sites. On night one, this lasted until well after midnight. So, we all went to the desk and asked that the management be on the lookout on night two. Then we went in force around 6:00 PM Saturday night and said, “Listen, we put up with this stuff all last night thinking you’d shut it down at a reasonable hour. We have small children here trying to sleep, and could you keep the music and the swearing to a reasonable level?” And actually, they were really accommodating and apologized and said no problem. Thing is, that was before they were high and drunk. Around 9:00 it all started again. This time, other families from even further out than our horseshoe came in and voiced some opposition. All this resulted in was shoving match and near violence. Finally, around 11:00 PM, we heard a truck roll up, and it turned out to be management, there was some yelling and protesting, and finally the manager guy busted out the big gun: “Either you can turn off the music and sleep it off or I call the state police to escort you off the property, and it doesn’t smell like you want that.” By 7:00 AM Sunday morning, they had packed it in and slinked off back to wherever they came from.
That’s the bad stuff. On the better side of things, that children got to participate in a pumpkin carving contest, a campsite decorating contest, a Halloween costume parade and to trick-or-treat for two hours. My kids sucked it up and didn’t complain once about the cold; my son refined his outdoor urinating technique to include not dropping his pants all the way to his ankles; my daughter washed dishes by hand and fetched water from the pump; and my son helped break down the tent; and they both learned to toast marshmallows without catching them on fire. All in all, a good camping experience. Now, I'm dead tired, my hands are chapped and raw from all the fire maintenance and food prep, my back hurts, and I’m cold to the bone and will spend the rest of the day with my head in the oven.
Though I detailed the bad, I really am pleased with the good, espcially the family braving the cold. Thanks for reading my tale!
Now, of these 23 people(13 of whom are adults), 20 of them are Columbia, Maryland natives, with myself and my two children being the only two country bumpkins. And how many of them have camping experience? ONE. My brother-in-law’s father-in-law. Lorenzo, tagged along (probably recognizing the potential for a CF (Cluster*you-know-what*) when he saw it) and he is a seasoned veteran camper. As Friday evening camp setup progressed, it became clear that it was pretty much going to be him and I serving the rest of the group as far as tent set up, fire maintenance and food prep. Bugger. That was CF1.
CF2: Last year, it stayed warmer much later into the year. This year, it was looking to be between 34-38 degrees both nights we were staying and we had a bunch of comfort loving-city dwellers (and 6 of the 10 children under 6) in borrowed, mildew smelling tents and slumber party quality sleeping bags. A bed check revealed that only Lorenzo’s tent was prepared with appropriate sleeping gear, including heavier sleeping bags and a thermal base (i.e. an air mattress or some such so their rear-ends are not parked right on the cold ground). So, at 8:00 PM on Friday, since we were in my neck of the woods, I had to organize a group Wal-Mart trip, with the following message: “Look, y’all need to get something between you and the ground and you all need something over top or you’re gonna wake up with ice on your nose. 2nd, any hope you had of this being some romantic get away, and that you’re gonna score when the kids are asleep, forget it. You need to have the kids in the sleeping bags between you so they don’t freeze.) Duh.
CF3: Not a one of these people have ever built a camp fire or prepped food outside of a back yard fire pit or a hibachi. So, Lorenzo and I ended up prepping food all weekend for everyone. I'm sure many of you all have prepped food at a campsite for many people, and know that trying to keep the line moving on that scale is hard work, and it pretty much means that the cook doesn’t get to eat because the non-campers are toofocused on themselves to set any food aside, and most of them underestimated proper food quantities. This means that on both mornings, I prepped 3 lbs of bacon and got none of it. I essentially lived on beer and s’mores. I’m especially peeved because it was supposed to be each family fending for themselves, but to my knowledge only the two fires ever got lit. I pre-prepped the ingredients on Friday AM and assembled and cooked this awesome stew with diced steak and sweet sausage in an 8 qt dutch oven it was gone in like 3 minutes. By the way, I love my dutch oven; it ain't pretty, as I inherited it from my grandfather and it’s 40 years old, but it cooks a good meal. As it happened, my campsite and Lorenzo’s campsite were the two ends of a horseshoe, so people were just migrating between fires, filling their bowls, the freeloaders.
CF4: As luck would have it, remember where I said that our group had all but two of the sites in our little horseshoe? Well, the two sites that were right in the middle of the “U” bend of the whole thing were these two families who I'm sorry to say are the reason people believe certain things about outdoorsmen. They rolled in driving their pick-ups, with the beds filled with 30 pack cubes of bud and coors light and lo about 8:00 PM, after we smelled some questionable fumes coming from their direction, what should greet our ears? Freebird. Oh yeah, baby, we were in for a loooong night. They had the full rotation on for us; Hank, Hank Jr., Skynard, Zepplin, CCR, and lots of other predictable stuff (and most of it stuff I like under normal circumstances), and they were whooping, hollering, cussing, swearing, fighting and peeing in plain view of the other sites. On night one, this lasted until well after midnight. So, we all went to the desk and asked that the management be on the lookout on night two. Then we went in force around 6:00 PM Saturday night and said, “Listen, we put up with this stuff all last night thinking you’d shut it down at a reasonable hour. We have small children here trying to sleep, and could you keep the music and the swearing to a reasonable level?” And actually, they were really accommodating and apologized and said no problem. Thing is, that was before they were high and drunk. Around 9:00 it all started again. This time, other families from even further out than our horseshoe came in and voiced some opposition. All this resulted in was shoving match and near violence. Finally, around 11:00 PM, we heard a truck roll up, and it turned out to be management, there was some yelling and protesting, and finally the manager guy busted out the big gun: “Either you can turn off the music and sleep it off or I call the state police to escort you off the property, and it doesn’t smell like you want that.” By 7:00 AM Sunday morning, they had packed it in and slinked off back to wherever they came from.
That’s the bad stuff. On the better side of things, that children got to participate in a pumpkin carving contest, a campsite decorating contest, a Halloween costume parade and to trick-or-treat for two hours. My kids sucked it up and didn’t complain once about the cold; my son refined his outdoor urinating technique to include not dropping his pants all the way to his ankles; my daughter washed dishes by hand and fetched water from the pump; and my son helped break down the tent; and they both learned to toast marshmallows without catching them on fire. All in all, a good camping experience. Now, I'm dead tired, my hands are chapped and raw from all the fire maintenance and food prep, my back hurts, and I’m cold to the bone and will spend the rest of the day with my head in the oven.
Though I detailed the bad, I really am pleased with the good, espcially the family braving the cold. Thanks for reading my tale!
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