Do you ever think that your life is channelling something from a National Lampoon movie?
Well, we are home from camping a day early and I must admit that our short holiday mirrored the Griswalds!
Firstly, as Dear Husband packed the back of his ute, I commented that he should put a tarp over all of our good camping gear! Nahhhhh, he replied. We'd be fine. You guessed it....half-way to our destination, it poured raining and all of the equipment in the back got soaked. I still have memories of him lifting the toaster out after we arrived and water pouring out from inside it. It was amazing that it still worked.
When we arrived at our camp site, the rain was so heavy that we contemplated just hiring an on-site cabin for the night. Luckily, the rain eased and we eagerly began setting up the tent and other camping paraphernalia. This actually went fairly smoothly until I tried to help the 12 year old assemble the camp bunks. I used the palm of my right hand to try and bang the pieces together...bad move cause the entire section of palm from my life line to my thumb ended up swollen and badly bruised. Have you ever tried pushing yourself up off a camp air bed with a half-swollen and very sore palm? Nasty!
Afterwards, due to the impending rain, DH decided to go down to the nearest camping place and buy a tarp to throw over the entire tent. Naturally, he bought a cheapy, which virtually fell apart after the first big gust of wind. In fact, the entire four days were spent fiddling around with this tarp. It started off completely covering the tent, then after it broke, he moved it so that it half covered the tent. Then he put the poles up so that it became an annex but everytime it rained, he went into such panic mode about water pooling and wind damage that he'd run out in the rain and anchor it all to the ground (he even did this in the middle of the night) so that we had to commando crawl to even get out of the tent. Then, after it dried a bit, he'd reattach the poles again. The entire up-down-up-down operation drove me nuts! And quite frankly, I don't care if I never see a blue tarp again!
On the first night, I was so exhausted that I fell asleep fairly easily. I was abruptly awoken at about 3am with some foreign tourists talking at the top of their voices in the tent across from us. A short time later, a male voice about 3 tents up yelled out some not so nice comments and the next we heard was a car take off and all was quiet. Phew! Never knew that there was such a thing as camping rage! Of course, by this time I was dying to go to the toilet and it was only then, while walking in the dark in the middle of the night, that I realised that we were the furthest campers away from the facilities there. It was a good 2-3 minute walk to them and in the middle of the night, this seemed forever! Not to mention that my 'mother's bladder' was not happy.
After settling back in for the night, we soon discovered that the tree behind our tent site was a party venue for the local flying fox population! In fact, they sang, ate and messed throughout the night for the entire time that we were there. And bat poop falling on blue tarp in the middle of the night sounds like mini explosions!
So we bravely continued on with our holiday. We did catch up with friends and go shopping and even made a walk on the beach once but by the third day, the rain was so continuous that we went to the movies and prayed for sunshine.
No such luck! By lunch time this morning, our tent resembled an island in the middle of a lake. Rain water thankfully hadn't penetrated the tent itself but did seep in one corner due to the pool of water that had accumulated outside. By this time, we'd given up. We craved the idea of a roof, a television, a toilet nearby and being dry. So we headed home.
Now, you'd think that the excitement would stop there, wouldn't you? We drove through sheets of heavy, heavy rain and prayed that we'd be safe. Then finally, we hit Brisbane where the rain was but a memory. And as I drove behind DH's car, thinking how grateful I was to be heading home, I watched him pull out into the lane next to us and then watched as a car from behind came screaming into him! Yes....accident! Thankfully, no one was hurt but it was just the icing on our Lampoon holiday!
I have no words left except that famous quote by Woody (and Dorothy): "There's no place like home! There's no place like home!)
Well, we are home from camping a day early and I must admit that our short holiday mirrored the Griswalds!
Firstly, as Dear Husband packed the back of his ute, I commented that he should put a tarp over all of our good camping gear! Nahhhhh, he replied. We'd be fine. You guessed it....half-way to our destination, it poured raining and all of the equipment in the back got soaked. I still have memories of him lifting the toaster out after we arrived and water pouring out from inside it. It was amazing that it still worked.
When we arrived at our camp site, the rain was so heavy that we contemplated just hiring an on-site cabin for the night. Luckily, the rain eased and we eagerly began setting up the tent and other camping paraphernalia. This actually went fairly smoothly until I tried to help the 12 year old assemble the camp bunks. I used the palm of my right hand to try and bang the pieces together...bad move cause the entire section of palm from my life line to my thumb ended up swollen and badly bruised. Have you ever tried pushing yourself up off a camp air bed with a half-swollen and very sore palm? Nasty!
Afterwards, due to the impending rain, DH decided to go down to the nearest camping place and buy a tarp to throw over the entire tent. Naturally, he bought a cheapy, which virtually fell apart after the first big gust of wind. In fact, the entire four days were spent fiddling around with this tarp. It started off completely covering the tent, then after it broke, he moved it so that it half covered the tent. Then he put the poles up so that it became an annex but everytime it rained, he went into such panic mode about water pooling and wind damage that he'd run out in the rain and anchor it all to the ground (he even did this in the middle of the night) so that we had to commando crawl to even get out of the tent. Then, after it dried a bit, he'd reattach the poles again. The entire up-down-up-down operation drove me nuts! And quite frankly, I don't care if I never see a blue tarp again!
On the first night, I was so exhausted that I fell asleep fairly easily. I was abruptly awoken at about 3am with some foreign tourists talking at the top of their voices in the tent across from us. A short time later, a male voice about 3 tents up yelled out some not so nice comments and the next we heard was a car take off and all was quiet. Phew! Never knew that there was such a thing as camping rage! Of course, by this time I was dying to go to the toilet and it was only then, while walking in the dark in the middle of the night, that I realised that we were the furthest campers away from the facilities there. It was a good 2-3 minute walk to them and in the middle of the night, this seemed forever! Not to mention that my 'mother's bladder' was not happy.
After settling back in for the night, we soon discovered that the tree behind our tent site was a party venue for the local flying fox population! In fact, they sang, ate and messed throughout the night for the entire time that we were there. And bat poop falling on blue tarp in the middle of the night sounds like mini explosions!
So we bravely continued on with our holiday. We did catch up with friends and go shopping and even made a walk on the beach once but by the third day, the rain was so continuous that we went to the movies and prayed for sunshine.
No such luck! By lunch time this morning, our tent resembled an island in the middle of a lake. Rain water thankfully hadn't penetrated the tent itself but did seep in one corner due to the pool of water that had accumulated outside. By this time, we'd given up. We craved the idea of a roof, a television, a toilet nearby and being dry. So we headed home.
Now, you'd think that the excitement would stop there, wouldn't you? We drove through sheets of heavy, heavy rain and prayed that we'd be safe. Then finally, we hit Brisbane where the rain was but a memory. And as I drove behind DH's car, thinking how grateful I was to be heading home, I watched him pull out into the lane next to us and then watched as a car from behind came screaming into him! Yes....accident! Thankfully, no one was hurt but it was just the icing on our Lampoon holiday!
I have no words left except that famous quote by Woody (and Dorothy): "There's no place like home! There's no place like home!)
