We were getting really excited with our dreams of grandeur and our adventures in the great outdoor! My sweet husband allowed for glamorous items to be added to our inventory such as air mattresses and electronic bug repellents for his rookie camper of a wife.
Mr. Smith was in hard-core outdoor man mode.
Ms. O didn't have a clue what we were doing, she just knew that our car was busting at the seams and she got to bring her trusty sleeping buddy - Dog. (yup, that's his name).
We decided to go to a Federal Park - Harden Ridge off of Lake Monroe, and it was Beautiful! I was so worried about the amenities and had nightmares of nasty nasty bathrooms and forget any showers. But I was pleasantly surprised that not only did I need to bring my own toilet paper, but that the bathrooms were ridiculously nice! No spiders or cobwebs in sight and plenty of high-powered, hot water showers! Things were looking great!
As we were all sitting around the fire that outdoor man had made, Mr. Smith goes, "Oh no, I just remembered why I hated camping" !!!!!!! Are you kidding me? He explained that when he was little he hated the sleeping part of camping. Things were too quiet and he could hear every....little....sound. I looked at him with a look that I'm sure screamed, YOUR TIMING IS IMPECCABLE!
Turns out, he called it. We blew up our air mattresses, snuggled into bed. Ms. O was ecstatic that mommy and daddy were slumber partying it up with her in the same "room" and wiggled and giggled and chatted away until finally sleep took over. I actually did fall asleep despite the constant acorns falling outside, and wind moving the trees. Mr. Smith did as well until they came.
I have a whole new hate of raccoons. We knew that you don't leave any food out when camping, and we didn't even take our cooler out of the car knowing this fact. But we did NOT know that they were SEVERELY attracted to a styrofoam cup of leftover iced tea. Those monster-sized rodents came out and attacked the cup, and scratched up against the tent and TERRIFIED THE DICKENS out of this camping rookie. My maternal instincts went into hard-core overtime and i was prepared to fight them off in a sort of Chuck Norris styled attack if they so much as dared to unzip our tent (my imagination had totally convinced myself that this was an absolute possibility). They came and went from our campsite revisiting that loud-speaker styrofoam all...night...long. No sleep for mommy and daddy, but Ms. O slept right through it all, happy as a clam.
This is the only thing that kept them coming back for more!
Bright eye-d and bushy tailed
The child had so much fun waking up next to her sweet daddy.
She didn't notice the red, baggy eyes from no sleep.
Our camping adventure was over. As we sat looking at our remains of the fire before we were both on our smart phones locating the nearest hotel and creating a change of plans. It ended up being a wonderful time where we drove south and visited some of our favorite attractions and had a great time as a family...in air conditioning....with cable....and comfy fresh sheets.
Stay tuned for our part 2 of the non-camping weekend!
