Whew, what a weekend. I took several days off and went camping with my son and his Cub Scout troop. I vowed to make this tip different from last. This time I came PREPARED!. I packed so much stuff for our 3 day-2 night trip that if we packed an extra toothbrush I think I would have busted the suspension on my truck. I had extra sleeping bags, a spare tent (one was already provided by the Scout Camp), plenty of food, and spare clothing. I was definitely prepared, …..or was I.

We got to camp and unloaded half our gear and proceeded to scout for a location to suit our needs. The provided tents were already setup, albeit haphazardly. I chose a tent and quickly re-staked the corners to form a perfect base, re-positioned the poles and tightened all the ropes. We then proceeded to toss out the cots that the camp provided and I laid a tarp over the tent floor, and immediately began inflating a queen sized air mattress. I also brought along a plastic milk crate that served as a box to carry the food in, but it also doubled as a night stand/bedside table. We covered our bed in sleeping bags, stored our clothing and we were ready to hit the trails and earn merit badges.

Later that day I sat and relaxed outside our tent gnawing on a piece of jerky as the kids were running around chasing fireflies. A neighboring parent camper came by and asked for some help, and I sat my bag of jerky down on my chair and gladly obliged. After dinner, we cleaned up and went to bed. We were not asleep long before unholy shrieks and howls could be heard right outside our tent. An animal was sniffing around our tent and its body was pressed up against the tent canvas, creating a moving bulge as it circled around us. I grabbed my flashlight looked out the tent window, and peered out into the darkness. Several raccoons were scuffling over my full bag of jerky that I had forgotten from earlier in the day. The loser was the one sniffing around the tent. I would have left them alone except my son was terrified by the noise, and the moving bulge didn’t help either. So I grabbed my shoe and gave the tent sniffer a couple of smacks and sent him packing, and then I ran out of the tent, hissing and spitting and stomping my feet. The rest of the howlers ran off, leaving me nothing but an empty bag to remember my jerky by.  That gave my son a good laugh. We went to bed giggling.

Day 2 – We went about eating an early breakfast, then enjoyed Archery and BB Guns, and visiting different venues around the camp. Halfway through the day a monster of a thunderstorm ripped through camp. It lasted for a couple of hours, raining buckets, lightning flashed every few minutes, punctuated by ear splitting thunderclaps. We took shelter at the game gazebo and played Chinese Checkers and waited out the storm.

Upon arriving at our campsite, it was clear that we had some things to overcome. Most of the tents had been twisted by the wind, and water had poured into everyone’s tents. Everyone but ours that is. Apparently, the time I took to reset the tent was time well spent. Our bedding was dry, as were most of our belongings. The only things soaked were a couple of pairs of shoes that we had left close to the tent flaps. They might as well have been bird baths. No great loss.

Later that night we decided to build a campfire and roast some ’smores. We could not find a single piece of dry timber anywhere in our vicinity. I decided to volunteer my camp lantern fuel to encourage the wet wood to ignite. In hindsight, not the best idea I’ve ever had. We piled the wet wood inside the campfire pit and stuffed the crevasses between the logs with paper plates and notebook paper. I then took about a cup of lantern fuel and doused the pile. I fumbled around my multi pocketed “shorts” looking for my lighter, then stepped my shower shoe clad right foot (my regular shoes were soaked in the rain remember) in the fire pit and proceeded to light the fuel laced paper and wood pile. The pile ignited with a loud KA-WOOMPF! It happened so fast, and the noise took me by surprise. I looked down at my foot, which was still in the fire pit, and saw that the burning fumes from the fuel had spread throughout the fire pit, and totally engulfed my leg. The hair on my ankle and calf caught on fire, and I simultaneously pranced out of the fire pit as I beat the burning hair on my leg. I pulled my foot from the shower shoe (a cheap Crocs knockoff) to inspect the damage and found that the shoe had protected the hair on my foot, except in little oval patches. Curiously, the protective shoe had oval holes in exactly the same locations. I went off to rub the burnt hair balls off my leg and to tend to my pride and ego. We then had ’smores without further incident. (Note to self: long pants, tennis shoes and socks must be worn next time you decide to light a campfire. A fire extinguisher wouldn’t hurt either!)

Day 3 – We woke up early and went down to the docks to get our “Polar Bear Swim” merit badge. It was dark and foggy, the water was cold, and there were lots of high pitched squeals from the swimmers as they entered the cold water……..some of the children made a ruckus too. We then cleaned up and went to breakfast which was, hands down, the best meal of this camping trip so far. We had toaster waffles, powdered scrambled eggs, and rubbery sausage patties. I was beginning to question the camp cook’s culinary abilities. Her food’s ability to forcibly, repeatedly evacuate a colon, however, was completely intact. On day 1 we had chicken stew served over a type of grain. My son put the stew on one side of his tray, and the grain on the other. After finishing the stew he began eating the grain and, with his face contorted, told me that the “oatmeal” tasted funny. I told him it was supposed to be rice. He stopped eating it.

As dawn turned into full blown morning light I inspected the combustibly depilated leg from the night before a little closer and saw that the itching I felt on my ankles all night was from mosquito bites. The bites were so close together and swollen that it looked like I was harboring a colony of pink lady bugs on my leg. A little calamine lotion, and off I went.

We had some free time at around noon so I decided to get a head start on packing. I sneakily commandeered a wheelbarrow from the camp quartermaster’s shed, packed up our belongings and loaded the truck. No sooner had I done that when another bout of bad weather blew in. I made a decision to skip the rest of camp activities that day since they were probably going to be canceled anyway. As I drove I looked into the rear view mirror and saw that my exhausted son had fallen asleep.

I took the next day off to recuperate from the camping trip. We woke up late, had breakfast and ran some errands. We decided to catch a matinee and stopped by the bulk food section of a local grocery to save some money on popcorn. My son put together a bag of Jelly Beans, while I went the “healthy” route and purchased yogurt covered raisins, and I threw in some chocolate covered malt balls in there for some color. We smuggled the contraband into the movie theater in our pants pockets, and didn’t pull out the goody bags until the theater went dark. I pulled the bag out of my pocket, reached for my candy, sighed a sigh of resignation and began to eat my warm, gooey, amalgamated, chocolate and yogurt covered malt ball bar, studded with raisins. All “par for the course” in this hapless existence I call “my life”.