So Our Camping Trip Was a Fail.

 I think I come off to some as someone who prefers to be pampered. Who likes things around me to be happy. I am Type A, who loves a plan and things to be properly in their place, to be sure, but I am adaptable when need be. I do like my bed. But I am not against camping at all. I’d rather be at a rustic cabin, cuz that is what I grew up knowing, but I have been camping in my teens. I’m not quite the stepmother-to-be from The Parent  Trap (Hayley Mills, I love you). When I was a kid we had a cabin in the forest, maybe 15 cabins total on one strip of lakefront and the other side of the road is untouched forest. My Grandpa built it when my mom was little I believe. I never did get to say goodbye to it and take any keepsakes as my Dad sold it while I was in BC and didn’t heed my request to hold off for 4 more months. (Bitter? Yes.  But I am trying to forgive cuz this bitterness I hold on to only hurts me). So anyway, my grandpa threw up this little cabin. Just four wooden walls and a lake pump for running water. Hot water was heated up on an electric stove, heat was provided by a wood burning stove and drinking water was a drive down the road at the church camp, where we filled plastic buckets with a pour spout from a water pump. It was fun. The bedroom doors had curtains instead of doors and my sister and I had hand crafted beds that became staggered bunk beds. There was one other small bedroom where my parents slept and when my Grandma came to visit she slept in the corner of the living room. Very rustic and awesome. So that is what I am used to. We chopped wood for a fire at night and stayed out on the beach all day. Sometimes we went canoeing and one summer our neighbour took us windsurfing. Nights were for Scrabble games with elderly neighbours or going for walks or movie nights. Movies at the lake was all we had except for one fuzzy channel that showed the news, constant re-runs of the Golden Girls or Family Feud. Occasionally the Simpsons was on, which my Grandma didn’t approve of because Bart is so disrespectful to his parents. If we did watch a movie it was always rented from up the road or a favourite movie we would get hooked on. One summer was the summer of My Cousin Vinny, the next was the Wayne’s World movies, the one after that was Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter is Dead. We would watch them over 50 times in one summer (not exaggerating) and if it was rainy and we got sick of puzzles or board games, sometimes we would watch the same movie two times in a row with barely a pause in between.  So that is what I am used to. To me the lake was Tahiti Treat pop, Spitz sunflower seeds, burgers, BBQ flavoured chips, wood smoke smell, sand in your toes and a fave movie. I think that’s why I always get super annoyed when people say they are “right by the beach” and then you visit and get to take a 30-40 minute drive to the beach they are “practically beside”. It’s also why I get annoyed that people have the misconception that Saskatchewan is so dry and flat when my memories are all that green, lush forest and water at the cabin. Makes me sad that my family had something so precious and that it’s gone. My nostalgia makes me love the idea of owning another cabin someday or of being really, truly on a lake for camping.

Camping is totally an option. My bed at the lake was just a rolled out futon on a piece of board anyway, so I could totally sleep in a tent on the ground! So this year we get all ready for our yearly vacation.

Our original plan which I am remembering roughly was something like: 2 days with friends in Spiritwood, 2 days at my mom’s house in Claybank, 3 nights in Winnipeg and 2 nights camping, once in North Dakota and once in Montana on our way back home to Calgary AB.

Then Manitoba floods and it gets bad enough that they call in military support. So no Winnipeg. We cancel that and plan for next year possibly.

So our revised plan is a long weekend in Spiritwood, go to my mom’s house for a week, camp in southern Saskatchewan and then on to North Dakota and Montana for the other two nights. Well, three days camping rather than two nights and one and a half days is a lot more to plan for. We shop and get super excited about the whole thing. We go to Spiritwood and I get time with my best friend of a million years. We have a girls d

ay in North Battleford and a lot of relaxing time around her house and by the fire pit in their backyard. Melany and I tried to plan a few things but they all fell through. We had a relaxing time and it was a lot of fun as usual nonetheless. Then it was on to my mom’s house. We worry about the long time there; whether we will feel cramped for personal space or if we will feel as if we are imposing, but instead the time flies by. Hunter, of course, pukes 3 times at my mom’s. Once is scary enough, as he vomits in his sleep and it’s only the smell that alerts me that it has happened since he didn’t wake up or cry. He threw up at home twice right before vacation but with no fever, no lethargy, and no other sign of illness so we just assumed it was heat stroke. Izzy puked once because she was too hot so we assume the same accounts for his vomiting. But now we don’t know. We unexpectedly get to ask a doctor about the puking spells and he suspects just over-exertion in the hot weather as well.

 

Unexpectedly? Why, yes. We got to go to the hospital while visiting my mom. Josh’s sister has moved to a city only one hour away from my mom’s rental house in Claybank so we ask her over for dinner. Josh comes to tell me the plan and help us start prepping supper when Hunter starts crying. Josh runs over and asks him what is wrong. Hunter looks up at him all teary and says, “Daddy, how do you get something out of your nose?” and Josh looks. I hear, “You did NOT just DO THAT right now!” Turns out Hunter took a craft item, a small dice shaped bead, and shoved it up his nose so far that it’s in danger of being stuck up there further if we try to get it out. So off we go. We take the 40 minute drive to Moose Jaw, wait two hours and have it taken out with forceps style tweezers. Takes about two seconds. I kept the bead. The receptionist tells us of the time that her son stuck a pussy willow up his nose so far it got stuck and they once had a boy stick a bean down his ear, not tell his mom and have it found out when it started to grow. Good lord. We got back to my mom’s house in time to feed everyone and play some of the Killer Bunny board game. All in all a fun night after all.

We are sad to leave Claybank. Isabella and my mom have a good cry when they say their goodbyes (my Mom hasn’t cried in a long time: years! – so this is a magical cathartic moment for her), and it takes an hour to leave. We drive to Weyburn and I sleep so I don’t start crying and start Izzy crying again (my mom said “parting is such sweet sorrow” as we left and that sentence replays in my head all day). We arrive at Weyburn to shop. I pop an Imodium because my stomach is feeling off again and is super-duper bloated and uncomfortable. ( I have since started a food diary because even Josh has noticed that I am getting unusually bad bloating and sometimes at night my stomach makes a gurgling noise that is just WRONG). We get in to the store and the kids get to use adorable kid sized shopping carts to get the food we need for camping. I can’t wait to make breakfast outside so I make sure to grab bread and egg whites in a carton. Izzy and I also, eventually, find a S’mores kit. Hunter and Josh have grabbed a few other things. We check out. Onward!

Josh and I are tired and hungry when we get to the campsite. I feed the kids the ready-made roast chicken and cold beans we brought. Hunter eats two pieces of bread but not much else. He is complaining that is stomach is feeling “full and tight”. Izzy basically eats the entire roast chicken and some chips and some bread on top of that. She is a growing girl! Josh gets back with the wood and starts a fire. We let it get just hot enough to make S’mores. I get marshmallows ready but whenever the wind changes smoke gets in to my eyes and it BURNS. Not the normal “oh smoke sucks to get in your eyes” itchy feeling, but an actual burning sensation. My eyes turn red and water profusely while puffing up. Josh asks, concerned, if I am okay. I buck up and finish the S’mores but avoiding the smoke is hard to do. Josh felt the same when he was adding a log to the fire. Even the tiniest bit of smoke near our eyes felt acidic and awful. Josh called it “chemical cancer wood” after that! I took the kids to the park and they played a ton. Then we came back to the campsite, where I let them have a juice box. They said they wanted to go in the tent so we read them a story and put them to bed. We could hear them playing and eventually just asked them if they wanted to come out again.

 

Hunter looked way too pale and we let him sit a bit while we sipped our Moscow Mules. (You can find a ton of variations of the Moscow Mule on the web, like these ones on advanced mixology). Then Josh asked him if he would like to stay up or go to bed. Go to bed was the answer so Izzy and I stayed up and Hunter went in the tent with Daddy. Josh laid with him til he was tired enough and left. A few minutes later Izzy felt ready for bed too. She went and laid down on her side of the tent. Hunter was right beside her and just beside our sleeping bags. He was facing away from her and she was curled up comfortable against the tent wall. Josh and I were fixing the fire and sipping our drinks. “I could almost get in to this,” I said, “It’s nice to be out here. We should play cards soon”. Then, maybe 5 minutes later, we heard a small little cough from Hunter and I said “He’s gonna puke” and Josh looked doubtful when we heard next, “Oh god!” from Izzy and her little voice say “Why? …. It stinks!” Josh said as he approached the tent to check it out he heard a sound like a hose spraying water. Hunter had puked in our tent. This was his 6th time puking in 3 weeks. No fever, no warning. There was sooooo… much puke that there was no salvaging our stuff and staying the night. It was  a scene from the Exorcist in there. We packed the kids in the car, where

they promptly fell asleep, and set about cleaning up the site. I fired off a text from my mom asking if we could stay that night and her giddy reply was “Okay!” since she was excited to see us again. Understandably, I didn’t feel that giddy. I traipsed back and forth from the shower to the site, trying to wash away as much of the puke as I could. We used all of our towels and napkins wiping and washing. It took us a long time. It was a little after 11pm when we finally left. It was a shame because I was finally getting in to it!! Another plan changed! We canceled the other two camping sites and went back to my mom’s. our new plan became to leave a day early from my mom’s and have a day to recover from our vacation at home. On the way back to my mom’s house there’s a detour! It’s short and as we ride on the gravel road beside the highway to get spit back on to it, we see the reason for the detour. A semi truck has flipped on to its side! On a straight and flat highway. How bizarre. We finally make it back to Claybank. At two a.m. we carry the kids, still asleep, and put them in their beds. Then Josh and I go down and have the beer we were looking forward to having around the campfire. We update my mom on our adventure and then excuse ourselves. By the time my head hits the pillow I am already asleep.

The next day is our last full day of vacation. We ‘waste’ some of it lazing on the couch, watching Food Network and watching part of  the Wizard of Oz with Hunter. When my mom and I decide to go and check if the nearby Historical Brick Plant of Claybank is open the whole family decides to come with us. It is open! And not only that but a guided tour starts in two minutes. It’s our lucky day! We bought the guided tour and everyone has a blast….except for Izzy who says she is bored. We learn what a hard, crappy, and hot job it was to make bricks out of clay and we learn how they made the different types and shapes, among other things. It’s a really fascinating tour! After the tour we go back to the main house to have a snack. Josh and I share a Saskatoon berry and rhubarb crisp which was divine. Hunter decided on a cinnamon bun and devoured the entire thing; the most he has eaten in days. Izzy and Grandma choose ice cream cones and I realize this is the first time Isabella has had butterscotch ripple ice cream since she can remember! My mom and I were looking through the books and found two about historical Saskatchewan buildings. My mom bought a book for both of us since the girl said they were only five dollars. I think she had the price wrong, as it was a full photo book of pictures and facts. She insisted she was right so who was I to argue. (When we looked in the cover of my mom’s at her house there was a bright pink sticky note saying “not for sale”! But we did leave an extra one of that type on the stand so they still have a display copy. Really funny to us though! ) Our trip to the clay brick making plant made for a very satisfying day. Hunter even looked better. He had colour back in his cheeks and his stomach seemed less bloated. We went back to my mom’s and the kids play while we lazed around some and then we made BBQ burgers and salad for dinner. Hunter said he was too tired while still at the table and went to bed. Izzy didn’t last a lot longer!! Later that night Josh built a fire in mom’s fire pit and we sat and talked and talked while fending off mosquitoes and red ants. After we went in the house my Mom and I lasted longer than Josh did so we sat up and talked and watched TV. It was such a good day!

That was it! Next day we got up, packed up the car and drove home. We were glad to be back home to our pets and our own beds but it was bittersweet for me because I left some of the people I love the most in Saskatchewan. Next year! And not even that long now to see my mom, as we are going to her house for Christmas, which is super exciting.

How did all of your summer vacations go?