Nay, we are but men. Rock!

My apologies for the length of this one but I think it is a fun story.

This past Monday I had a rare day off for this time of year.  In fact it was my first non-workday since July 25th.  This includes weekends.  Since we had such a rare gem we decided to pack up the minivan and head out for a relaxing few days of camping.  Now both my wife and I have spent a fairly significant amount of time in the wilderness in our lives but for some reason we just haven’t been able to get the whole pull-into-a-campsite-with-everything-you-would-have-at-home-and-call-it-camping thing down. Something always happens that makes it seem like we have never actually been outside let alone gone camping.

The weekend’s activities started out pretty encouragingly.  My oldest son had his first ever soccer game on Saturday so we stuck around to be able to do the whole soccer family thing and then we would camp Saturday and Sunday nights.  It was awesome.  I’m not going to say that kid was the best 3-year-old out there, because some people who might read this blog also had kids playing, but he was one of the most enthusiastic.  It was a good indication of how he will be when he graduates to playing a higher level of athletic contest, football.

After the “game” was over we headed back to the house and threw our living room in the back of our van.  We drove to my parents’ house about 30 minutes away in order to get their propane grill, beer, and mattresses from their RV.  That’s right mattresses.  Then it was off to Beverly Beach on the Oregon coast.

When we got to the campsite we realized two things.  Thing the first: we didn’t bring the propane tanks for the grill.  No big deal my wife and I are relatively proficient at fire starting.  Thing the second: we brought the wrong tent and one of us is going to have to sleep in the back of the van each night.  Other than that things were going swimmingly.  Things continued to be pleasant until my oldest son started getting abdominal cramps.  The kid developed a case of Beverly Beach’s Revenge that would make that guy in Alien who had the little creepy jump out of his ribcage cringe.  I know my son was in pain because I have amazing powers of deduction.  So when he started yelling, “Papa my belly hurts!!! It hurts!!!  Make it stop!!! I need to poop!!!”  I knew something was amiss.  We spent a good amount of time on the potty that evening and into the morning.  I think I am going to take him to the tattoo parlor tomorrow and have WARNING CONTENTS UNDER EXTREME PRESSURE tattooed onto his abdomen.  Seriously I think he actually lifted off the seat a few inches one time.  It was bad.

This probably would have been enough to make us come home the next day but to make matters even more surreal I forgot one major rule when going to the Oregon coast.  IT IS FREAKING FREEZING AT NIGHT!!  We didn’t bring sleeping bags because our kids are not to the point where they do them well.  So we brought blankets.  With my wife in the van I was sleeping beside my boys and they were fine because they had the blanket all three of us were using as well as an expedition weight fleece blanket.  Unfortunately it was not big enough for me as well.

Around 4:00am I scared the bejeezus out of my wife by opening the back hatch of our van and crawling in with her.  I’m sure she thought I was some sort of intruder but I thought she was the absolute best source of warmth I could find and with the kids in the tent…  

The next morning we played around for a while and then packed up and went back to my parents’ house where my oldest and I set up the tent in the back yard.  We made Smores over the fire pit.  I was able to watch the Broncos beat the Chargers.  But best of all I feel like I reconnected and reintroduced myself to my family.  Yeah for camping.