Father’s Day Weekend

For those who don’t know, our tradition for Father’s Day weekend is to take the whole family camping.  My family, my brother’s family and my mom’s family and anyone else who want’s to go.  I was going to blog a little bit here and there and put it on one post.  That worked for Friday, not so much the rest of the weekend.  Cheri didn’t go this weekend because of her ruptured disk.  She never would have lasted sleeping or being awake.

Friday

6:30 pm

Samantha got stuck riding with me on the way to the park so she got an education in music. We listened to Johnny Cash, the Beatles, and Tommy James along with some more modem tunes such as Skillet, Carrie Underwood, and Linkin Park. She text grandma and complained about Johnny Cash, my mom told me I was cruel.

9:30 pm

On the picture to the left, I circled our 3 sites that we reserved for this year.  It was nice being that close to the restrooms (which you can also see on the pic)  Typical evening once we got there, put up tents and prepped everything then grilled up some burgers for supper.  We had bought a new tent for this year after last years debacle where Cheri and I spent the night trying to keep out all the water. This tent isn't nearly as big as we thought. So we are letting Samantha and her cousin sleep in their own tent, we'll see how well that goes. If they are up giggling all night, it might be the last time.  Glad they are sleeping next to my brothers tent.

All the kids helped me with my tent with my niece being the biggest help.  It was like having a project with the kids, it was nice.  Actually, all the kids were very helpful this year.  Must be a sign of them growing up.

11:30 pm

The wood we bought from the general store here sucked ass.  We couldn't get any kind of a fire going so most everyone crashed early.  My brother and I stayed up a little while later but he went to bed about 20 minutes ago. We had to chase off a raccoon when it came within 10 feet from us and was eating the dog food out of the bowl we left out.  I'm not really tired, probably because I slept in till 11 this morning.  I got ready and crawled into bed, or air mattress in my pjs and hoodie.  It's quite chilly tonight which is good sleeping weather.  The bad part is going to be my air mattress has already lost some air, I have a feeling I'll be on the ground in the morning and considering I've been living off ibuprofen for the last couple of weeks because of my back, I'm not going too be able to move.  Guess we'll see tomorrow.

Saturday

9:30 am

Sure enough, I woke up on the ground. The worst part was I did that at 6:30 this morning, and it was raining.  Didn’t stop Trevor from snoozing away (pic above).

We've been people watching this morning while eating our Amish crack for breakfast. The guy beside us showed up last night with his kids, set up a small tent and turned around and left this morning.  But we only saw one kid with him this morning and he didn't start a fire or anything.  We had people on the other side who brought out their crying toddlers outside in the rain, to change them.  Then across the street we watched as a fairly heavy woman changed her shirt right next too the road.  Of course after we crack on all our neighbors, my stepdad comes out wearing this.

Could be an interesting day.

11:30 & on

We got hit with some more rain this morning.  But we saw the weather coming and got prepared.  You can see the red dot where we were located and just a little bit of rain coming in the picture to the left.  We put up 2 gazebo like tents right next to my moms porch on their pop-up camper.

As you can see we were well protected from the rain that was dropping on and off all morning.  Eventually it let off and we headed for the beach.

         

The first picture shows you how far we had to walk to the lake.  I guess I’m getting my use out of the Google maps on my phone (found something else too but you’ll have to wait a few days to see that).  It’s not a real bad walk because there is a path that pretty much leads right to the beach area.  As you can tell, it was pretty chilly.  But that didn’t stop the kids from swimming.  Last we heard, the water was around 60°.  It was a little breezy but certainly not cold.  We stayed there just under 2 hours before heading back to the campsite.

Cheri came up to spend some time with us and she got there not long after we got back.  We sat around and my brother and I kicked all challengers ass in cornhole.  Then we got down to our father’s day supper.  Steaks on the grill, potatoes and mac and cheese.  All the father’s got steaks while everybody else got marinated chicken off the grill.  It was very good.  Cheri hung out for as long as she could before driving back home and we got a fire going (the wood actually burned this time) and we had some smores.  About 10:30 or so, we happened to check the radar and another storm was going to come close but we weren’t sure if we were actually going to get hit.  There was a huge storm to the north and south but a little gap between the two that we might be able to skate free but just to play it safe.  We cleaned up and headed for bed just to be on the safe side.

I took the trash over to the dumpster and when I lifted the lid, a freaking raccoon jumped towards me trying to get out before he realized I was standing there and he jumped back.  Scared the crap out of me, that was the last thing I was expecting when lifting the lid.  I threw my bag of trash at him then slammed the lid back down and headed for bed.  I figured I would be in bed awhile before I fell asleep but I crashed about when the storm was hitting.  All we ended up getting was some high winds, I don’t think we got a drop of rain from that storm.

Sunday

I forgot to mention that I switched mattresses to more of a bed sized mattress so I slept much better Saturday night.  Although it was a little warmer out than I would have liked.  I prefer to bundle up when I’m sleeping.

We sat down to our breakfast of pancakes, sausage and bacon this morning then just hung around and chilled.  Father’s day cards were handed out and then we got to work tearing down.  The kids again were a big help with getting things together and taking down the tent.  We ate a quick lunch before finishing the last of the packing and headed out on the roads.

All in all, it was another great camping weekend.  I always enjoy the weekends, even when we have to battle the elements, which is a good thing because we always seem to have to.  We are talking about extending it another day next year and making it a 3 day weekend.  Which tells you that we all have a good time.