Campouts

Camping...

Ah the greats outdoors. To spend the day outside soaking up the sun and fresh air, to spend time with my son as we just pal around, camp fires, skipping rocks.

These are all good things

However

I have a job and I believe myself to be a solid lower middle class citizen… why does my family insist on making me live like a homeless person on my days off? Training? Did I miss a memo?

Started out well enough. The Cub Scout “Webelo woods” is coming up soon. Which I have reported about before. It’s when the Webelo’s get to spend some time with the boy scouts to get an idea what it is all about. Always a couple of weeks before hand the scouts all go out and do a cleanup of the site and spend the night.

This was the Beasts first year as a scout (not a Webelo) to do this. He begged me to go with him.

What is a dad to do?

“No son. My laziness and sense of comfort is way more important than your opinion of me and our relationship.”

Not. Gonna. Happen.

So I go.

Overall it was a well and good day that could not have been spent any better.

However

This does not include the rain, the 20 degree drop in temperature in 10 minutes, the wind that blows so hard that the only thing keeping the tent down is your combined body weight, the wet grass and cloud cover that turns your feet to cold clay.

Yeah. Got hit by that bunch.

The Beast don’t take too well to storms anyway. Lightning and thunder are his bane.

So we are laying in our small Ziploc bag. A 2 man pup tent is not that formidable against a prairie storm.

The wind is blowing the sides of the tent in so deep and frequent that the Beast has resorted to obscure ninja kicks and hits to try and keep it at bay while scrunching himself as close to me as possible.

I am laying there holding the samurai master tightly and reassuring him that it aint no big deal as I am watching the rain tarp across the top of our tent billowing like a sail in a monsoon and planning out in my head what I am going to do when (not if) this thing collapses on us.

I unzipped the one window we had just a bit and that helped out quite a bit but now all our body heat had a way out.

Cant win here gotta go with shell integrity.

Luckily we must have dosed off as I awoke around 3am with the storm abated and a breeze blowing and the most god awful pain in my right side.

First I thought, great im sleeping on a rock. Then as my brain starts to rev up and all sectors are heard from it was concluded that once again I have am soon to be the proud father of a thorny kidney stone.

OH JOY!

Stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Surrounded by sleeping scouts and other campers.

Im cold

Im damp

And I am giving birth to a rock.

I now have to cowboy up and suck in the pain. Luckily it was a small one so it passed rather quickly but like they say time is relative. An hour of joy can seem like a second and a second of pain same seem like an eternity.

I get to a level where I can function semi-human like and get my shoes located and on. Quietly I stumble/creep to the car and get my medicine bag out. 2 muscle relaxers and 2 pain pills ought to do it.

Big glass of water too.

Soul sucking pain and staggering across an open field to the facilities (about 75 yards away) in the dark with the cold north wind pushing you back and the wet muddy grass squishing over and into your shoes makes you really appreciate “indoors”.

Anyway after all is said and done I wake the beast up, dress him in some warmer clothes, throw on my sweats remake our bed and pass out.

Morning comes, we break camp and high tail it home.

Sunday I am worthless.

A big bag of duh.

Was it worth it?

To my son it was and that is enough for me.

Still have to unpack the car too. Maybe Tuesday.