Wilderness Girl, the Sequel.

Soooo, I didn’t quite make my slippery escape from the trek to the woods. However, I was only sucked into being out there for the afternoon on Sunday, as opposed to actually camping overnight. Still, that was more than enough and I really don’t want to have to repeat the experience. A few of the highlights from my wild adventure:

We get to the campgrounds, find the in-laws site and pull in. When my truck pulled to a stop, we noticed that it felt like it was going to up and die. Andy popped the hood and found the problem. It was bad, y’all. Some vacuum hose had come loose and was blowing extremely hot air out. Bad news because it had been laying up against the PLASTIC sensor that it had originally been plugged into and melted it. Why are any car parts even made out of PLASTIC? If that wasn’t enough, it then burned a nice size hole in the intake manifold. Great. How the heck do you get home when your vehicle is on the verge of collapse?

It only took about 5 minutes before my morning shower had worn off. It was freakin’ hot and sticky out there. The clothes we had chosen, it became woefully obvious, weren’t the most out-doors friendly. Jeans are not a very comfortable thing to have on if you are going to puff up like a marshmallow from the heat. Deodorant? What a joke. Mother Nature bitch slapped that one all over creation. You know how in the summer, you can feel the sweat running down the backs of your legs because it had collected in your knee-pits until they could hold no more? Imagine that, but all over.

Next, in our game of survival came the nature walk. (Alright, not so much a nature walk, as a paved pathway to the kiddy playground. BUT! There were trees! And bugs! So very nature-y! And we walked! Shut up.) We met up with Mrs. B, SIL, Cousin S. and SIL’s kids on their way back from said playground. As we stood around talking on the walkway, Andy moved to the side and alllllllmost fell over trying to avoid stepping on a snake. A SNAKE, PEOPLE. It was less than 2 feet off the path that CHILDREN were running up and down without a care in the world. Andy was a fraction of a second away from getting bit. And I have it on good authority, as in my FIL, a great friend and a co-worker all said so, that this snake was indeed poisonous. You can tell by the shape of the head, apparently. After the screams died down, Mr. B. borrowed a hatchet and killed the nasty varmint. Course, I won’t mention that it took him at least 5 swings to finish the job. He missed a few times and let me tell you, not much pisses a snake off more than being hacked at by a shirtless man with a cigarette hanging from his mouth.

By now, it was time to fire up the grill and fix some lunch/dinner. As predicted, Andy was appointed head grill master. I was lucky enough to find a spot at the picnic table that was only slightly damp from the rain the night before and chatted with the kids around me. Naturally, it wasn’t long until the bugs smelled the good cookin’ and swarmed the camp site. Y’all should have seen it! Some flying something or other just about went down my shirt and I came up from that table like I had been crowned the new American Idol. Maybe even faster. Certainly with more profanity and yelling.

Finally, once the meal was eaten, I tried to snatch Andy away for a nice, quiet walk down to the water, but my plan was thwarted. As soon as the question, “Do you want to go walking?” came out, the kiddos started begging. “Can we go? Pleeeease?” What does wonderful SIL do? Tell them that of course, they can go. So much for that. We did manage to sneak a hug and quick peck, while the kids were throwing sand balls (picture snowballs but made of wet sand) at each other. Hey, I just said we would watch them, not prevent them from blinding themselves with sand.

When we got back to the campsite, everything was packed up and just about ready to go. THANK GOD. For the following 30 minutes, we said our good-byes and insisted that, “No, we don’t need to take your roll of aluminum foil, just in case, but thank you anyway.” Then, into the truck, buckle up and away we went. Fortunately, Andy’s rigging held the entire ride home. Seriously, it was only by the grace of God, some twist ties and a stick, that it worked. And the day wouldn’t have been complete without a The-End-is-Coming-NOW-Thunderstorm. The whole way home, all I could think about was why in the world would people go sleep in the woods, when mankind has worked for thousands of years to get OUT of the elements? Still, we made it home safely and in record time.

Alright, so you may be thinking, “That doesn’t sound so horrible. She’s being way dramatic.” and you are probably right. You know what, though? I don’t care. It was a miserable day and I hated it. Know what else? I’d do it again in a heartbeat to hear my husband say, “Thanks for going today. I appreciate you trying to have fun.” Little did he know what thoughts were running through my head all day. Then again, he has to put up with my family, so perhaps, he does know...