5 And a Viking: Tent meetin' time!

Well, we arrived home at 1:00 am Friday morning. Baby girl came down with a fever Friday afternoon and I’ve pretty much intermittently cuddled a warm little body, been puked on and unpacked out gold minivan ever since then. Notsofun.

But camping- oh camping was FUN! We were all exhausted, smelly and dirty from our heads to our toes, But it was a wonderful experience! It wasn’t a typical camping adventure. We went to family camp, 5 days of real hippy commune-esque lovin’ complete with neighbors stopping in all hours of the day or night, potluck meals every evening and a big old yellow tent meeting twice a day. Say and think what you will- but it’s what we did and we had a blast! Every night we’d go down to the big yellow tent, the meetings going well into the night. Children making great use of the carpet of green grass, plucking blades by the handful, playing who-knows-what. Getting sleepy, spreading blankets, laying sweaty little heads on grass stained pillows and drifting off to sleep while shouts of “amen!” and songs of “look what the Lord has done!” wafted through the night air. I couldn’t help but smile when I thought about the memories these kids were storing away. The smell of damp earth mixed with the sounds of an acoustic guitar. The sight of the yellow and white stripped tent aglow with flood lights mixed with the feeling a cool evening breeze after a hot day. These little ones of mine are 3rd generation Jesus people. This is their heritage- As hoaky as it sounds.

Anyway, enough about that. On to the camping and photos!

We camped at a *beautiful* YMCA camp out on one of the Finger Lakes. Hurricane Irene had just visited the east coast, and though there wasn’t any real damage done in Western NY, all of the rain soaked ground gave us only one option for RV parking. We were smack dab between a volleyball court and a basketball court. I planned on cooking over an open fire and experiment with our gas stove another time. But being on a recreational field, a fire was out of the question. Thankfully, my risk-taking eldest brother was there, and with a little poking around, he discovered some propane left in the tank from the previous owners. It was a happy discovery AND I got over my fear of lighting a gas stove. Seriously people, they freak me out! We discovered a few more things we need to add to our master packing list. A ratchet set, a second dish pan, dish washing gloves (my hands were NOT happy with me- my eczema flared up terribly,) steel wool (for my cast iron of course!) and an all-purpose cleaner (boy did I miss my vinegar spray bottle!) One of my favorite things about having a camper is that a ton of camping stuff can be stored in it, making a last minute camping trip a lot less stressful. I love that (although we had slept in it 2 previous times) this was our first official camping trip. What lovely memories will be tied to the colors of harvest gold, avocado green, rust orange and brown. What pure and wholesome thoughts will be forever associated with the smell of vintage canvas. We were happy campers!

We set up the awning for the first time. *ahem-crooked tablecloth-ahem*

And I took a few still-life shots, for esthetic reasons.

But mostly, it looked like this.

Oh yes, and did I mention that as we set it up, very important parts were just crumbling off of it? No? Ah, well, they were.

So we made-do with sticks and zip-ties. We’ll be on the look out for some replacement parts. (On a side note, just an hour before we left town, a friend of ours handed Mark a handful of zip-ties. “You never know when you need a zip-tie or two” he said. I can assure you, I have NO IDEA what we would have done without them. Thanks Dale!)