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Daddy-Daughter-Glampout 2013
Three dads and four daughters go into the woods…Sounds like the start of a bad joke, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, this is no joke. It’s a tale of extreme weather…foraging…hunting… surviving in the wilderness…(for what amounts to as lest than an entire day) Enjoy the fail…
It’s Saturday. M & I hastily throw together a backpack with a few necessities and we are off to start an adventure together. First stop, Wal-Mart, the land of plenty. (Plenty of whack-jobs…at least we fit in). We purchase only the necessities that one might need to survive in the wilderness for almost an entire day. We buy hotdog supplies, s’more supplies, kid friendly drinks, and the rest of the cart is filled with chips, beer and beef jerky…okay, mostly beer. We checkout and we are off to meet up with our Sherpa’s at base camp.
The journey just to get to the campsite is daunting in itself. It takes an entire 10 minutes and we are already hot, tired, and frustrated…mainly because we don’t get to hear the end of “Thrift Shop” before we have to park and unload. (Now we will never know if he bought that broken keyboard…and what about the knee board?)
We opt to hold this years DDG at a local lake and one of the 3 dads just so happens to have a boat at said lake. It is our mission to hit base camp, throw the tents up and get out on the water post haste…Of course, this takes slightly longer than anticipated. Each dad brings his own tent. One dad is either smart, or just lucky and brings a small backpacking tent that is quick to set up. The other two of us bring tents that are sized to sleep a small village. While these tents are only slightly more difficult to set up for a single person under normal conditions. When coupled with 40 MPH straight-line winds, they are near impossible. We endure. Three tents are eventually erected…barely (we had to forego the rain flies on the two larger tents as the winds were just too wild to even attempt that mess.)
The girls manage to entertain themselves while we dads wrestle with the tents and the wind. They find a mother herring of some kind that is nesting. For whatever reason, this herring builds her nest out in the open in the sand on the lake beach. Of course, the girls see a pretty bird and they want to get near it…so they do. This mother bird does not like the site of 4 girls prowling around her nest full of eggs and she becomes rather hostile. After several warnings from us dads about messing with animal mothers, and several run-downs by the momma bird herself, the girls seem unfazed and eventually they run momma off from her own nest! The next thing we see is one of the daughters running up the beach holding an egg in her hand and cheering as she had just won the last golden Wonka ticket. Before we even have time to get to them, the egg has been dropped and one baby bird is lost. After violently explaining to this little girl that she is a murderer and a terrible person (I think one dad even kicked her in the ribs), we force her to wipe her tears away with the murdered fetus and oh look…it’s boat time! (Don’t worry about the girl’s psyche. We booked her an appointment with Dr. Kermit Gosnell…she will be all better soon)
We get out on the lake and find an awesome little cove that is shielded from the wind…and we have a blast! The girls take turns jumping off the boat into the frigid, murky water. The dads take turns shoveling beer and snacks down our fat, unshaven faces. Our time out in the calm cove has makes us forget the tornadic winds that we were battling at base camp, and for a fleeting moment, we fool ourselves into believing that the winds may have actually subsided.
We get back to base camp and somehow manage to get a sustainable fire going. I feel like Tom Hanks in Castaway. We quickly realize that the two house-sized tents are not doing so well in these harsh wind conditions, so we improvise multiple tie-downs and stakes to keep the tents, at least, somewhat upright. The girls have fun roasting hotdogs and marshmallows in the fire while the dads have fun swilling beer and keeping the girls from falling in the fire. Only one child catches flame and kudos to her school because she knows to stop-drop-roll. After getting her snuffed out and resuscitated, she gleefully rejoins the group around the fire. If you find yourself downwind from her you catch the sweet aroma of charred mammal flesh drifting with the wind. If this campout takes a turn for the worse, I know who’s getting eaten first…
After the great s’more cleanup, we get the girls into their jammies and let them attempt to all sleep together in one tent. Obviously this does not work worth a damn and we end up sequestering each of them in their respective dad’s tent. Slowly, One-by-one, they drift off to dreamland. Meanwhile, us dads sit around the fire drinking ourselves off to drunkland.
Morning comes too soon, but she is a welcome sight nonetheless. Groggy and hungover, we begin to tear down camp in the hurricane force winds. (That’s right, the winds never slow…never calm…never stop.) As we are breaking down our campsite I look to where the girls are playing and what are they doing? They are effing with that effing bird and her nest again! Rather than administer more beatings, I just sit down on the ice chest and smile as I watch them play a game of cat and mouse with that poor momma bird. The girls squeal with both fear and delight as the angry mom chases them away and this warms my stone cold heart to its core. It looks like breakfast is on Mother Nature today! “Girls, bring daddy those eggs!”
We’re No Donner Party
In my last post (https://genericdad.com/2010/09/01/cant-we-all-just-get-well/ ) I teased a review of our first family trip to the mountains of New Mexico. 2 kids, 2 frazzled parents and a wagon full of belongings…
My family recently acquired a cabin in the Sierra Bonita mountains of New Mexico. Upon hearing this news we decided that we must get up there and check the place out immediately. The long Labor Day weekend provided just such an opportunity to embark on a most memorable journey.
Based on previous expeditions, we knew that Lil B was not a good passenger and so we decided to hitch up our wagon and ride to Amarillo late Thursday night. The theory behind riding at night is simple. The kids are used to sleeping during this time and they tend to sleep much the same during travel. The first leg of the journey starts flawlessly. We hit our schedule to be on the trail by 7:00pm. The only significant event from this leg of the journey was the awesome Pink Floyd-like lightning show that we were treated to for two hours. The subsequent huge thunderstorm with high winds and torrential rains was not quite as entertaining. Regardless, we pressed on and made it to Amarillo in near record time.
Rocky Road
After a brief overnight stay in Amarillo, we hit the trail for leg two of our expedition. This leg of the journey was one of the more difficult to endure for several reasons. The first reason being that we had joined into and official wagon train with my family and being from a small town, they do not like to ride on major trails. This forces the wagon train off the beaten path so-to-speak. In fact, there was a portion of the this leg where the trail degraded from paving-to dirt-to-boulders. Yes, I said boulders…Imagine yourself trying to navigate an unfamiliar trail littered with boulders while the wagon that you are following kicks up so much dust that you cannot see the trail to avoid the larger boulders, so you inevitably hit all of them. Couple that with a one year-old screaming at the top of his lungs because he is being tossed around like my skid-stained undies in the dryer. Regardless, we pressed on and were eventually rewarded with the site of a beautiful log cabin…where our right rear tire immediately deflated due to the boulder gash it received on the way in.
Tranquility
The next 48 hours are almost blissful enough to make one forget about the arduous journey that had just transpired, nor dwell on the one that lie ahead…almost. There is just something about being in the mountains that washes away all of my stress and my problems fade to the back of my mind. I don’t know if it’s a lack of oxygen due to the altitude, or maybe I am just at home in the mountains. I truly hope that I end up living in a mountainous location some day, but I digress. I got to take M fishing for the first time and it was a beating to say the least (could be an entire post of its own). However, she had fun with her cousin of similar age throwing rocks and catching crawfish. She also got to take her first (of many) ride on a 4-wheeler with her Grampy, which she loved. Lil B was happy just to have someone hold him and he even got to taste test many of the indigenous rocks. Grammy saved the day by bringing the girls their own new backpacks crammed with activities. They had a blast.
Paradise Lost
Of course we knew that the trip had to end, but as we were loading up the wagons I could not help but feel as though we had just gotten there. The third leg of our expedition got off to a rough start. We stopped no less than three times to let Cousin A tinkle, then we made the mistake of stopping for lunch in one of the desolate towns down the mountain. A long hour later we are back in the wagons and headed east to Amarillo. Just as we reach what has to be the absolute middle of nowhere, we see a sign “DWI Checkpoint Ahead”. WTF? That can’t be right, can it? As we top the next hill we are greeted to six NM state troopers at the intersection of state highway X and nowhere road Y. I am sure I was missing something, but there just didn’t seem to be enough traffic on the back roads of eastern NM to warrant a six-vehicle DWI checkpoint…thank God I only do heroin. After the mystery checkpoint we arrive in Amarillo for a brief overnight stay.
Wit’s End
The fourth and final leg of the journey was a blur because I had to find a happy place within. Somewhere between Vernon and Wichita Falls I am contemplating those skiddy drawers again. Only this time I am thinking of using them to gag my screaming son. Poor little guy is just not built for the road. On the bright side I think he may have a future in opera. At one point of the final leg my 3 year-old had to intervene and put a stop to bickering going on in the front seat. It is at this point that I check out for the rest of the way home. The wagon and horses were on cruise control…and so was I.
We Shall Return
We will be going back to NM for sure. However, our wagon training days are officially over. I love you, Southwest Airlines…and I love your free drink tickets.