My family recently went camping at a state park about two
hours away. We are novice campers, but
we did our research and managed to pull off a nice, inexpensive vacation for
the kids. The biggest adventure of the
trip occurred on the last day. Paul, recognizing
that his introverted wife needed some time to herself, invited the girls to
accompany him on an expedition through the forest adjacent to our
campsite. He left me alone with my
thoughts and the breakfast dishes. I had
just rinsed the final plate and was about to begin drying when I heard horrible
screams in the distance. “DADDY!!!!!!” “AAAAAUGH!!!!!”
I dropped my dish towel and began to run down the path into the forest. My imagination brought to mind a number of terrors.
Had Paul fallen into the ravine? Were
the children okay? What had
happened? Soon I met the girls on the
path running toward me in hysterics—arms flailing, tears streaming. Paul came along behind them, and all around was
a swarm of wasps. We all returned to the
campsite quickly with the children sprinting in all directions as they tried to
escape the fiends. Caroline had wasps
crawling in her hair and all over her fleece pullover. She began frantically tugging at her
pullover. I did what I could to help
them calm down so that the wasps wouldn’t sense a need to defend themselves
against the large, noisy threats that had disturbed their nest. “MOMMY HAS ONE IN HER HAIR!!!” Juliet cried
out. Paul began swatting a bit too
firmly for my liking. Caroline finally
managed to get her fleece off and threw it to the ground promising to leave it
behind. Laura was crying but was the
least hysterical of the three. The girls
demanded that we leave immediately. This
seemed like a good idea to us, so we loaded everyone into the van and drove away,
hoping that a break from the wilderness would help them compose
themselves. Paul, Caroline, and Laura
each received several stings. Juliet,
the most panic-stricken of the three, escaped unharmed. Caroline declared, “I’m
never going outside again.”
As it turned out, the five of us spent the next several
hours hiking a canyon at the state park.
They even seemed to enjoy it, although they did recoil at every single
insect they saw along the way. Except
for the butterflies and dragonflies. After
the hike, we returned to the campsite to eat lunch and to pack up for
home. The girls refused to get out of
the van.
Paul cannot do anything without reviewing the event to list
what we have learned. Here’s what we
learned on this camping trip:
(1)
You cannot have too many towels.
(2)
Make sure you have a sleeping bag for each
person.
(3)
Don’t forget table knives—especially if you plan
to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
(4)
Double check your first aid kit—it needs
children’s ibuprofen. Also, more adhesive bandages. It doesn’t matter how many you have; you will
need more.
(5)
You also need more wet wipes than you think.
(6)
You also need more charcoal than you think (that
is, if you plan to grill—maybe you don’t need to).
(7)
Children want s’mores every night.
(8)
Begin dinner preparations early so that you don’t
have to wash dishes after dark.
(9)
Don’t try to take down the tent at the last
minute.
(10) When
you take kids into the forest, lead the way—don’t let them go ahead of you.
(11) Don’t
be stingy with ice. Buy it every day.
Believe it or not, the children are willing to try camping
again, so we might actually get to use this list of lessons. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Post Script: Today I
was attacked by a wasp—in my basement!
Don’t tell the children or they’ll never go down there to feed the cats.
No comments:
Post a Comment