My family went camping to relax so we thought. We wanted to get away from the phone ringing off the wall to the blare of the TV. We were actually setting ourselves up for a huge disaster! You take the time out to plan, pack, buy food, and hit the road! Driving to where we were planning our grand adventure. Having the kids drive us crazy with are we there yet? I have to go to the bathroom, five minutes after you get down the road,I'm bored, or I'm sick of that music can you change the station.
Why do you have to listen to that junk, you guys are really old. You need to style up you tunes. We changed the station just to keep them quite and by the time you get there your nerves are so high strung that you can't wait to get out of the truck. Yet we are still thinking in the back of our mind, we can still make this a great trip.
We finally arrived at camp, unpacking the tents. Setting them up with two almost teenagers arguing over how you are suppose to set it up. No it goes this way or that way, let me show you how to do it. By the time that we had made it to our destination which was 4 hours away, it had started to get dark. Trying to set a tent up in the dark when it is brand new and you have never set it up before is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
When we finally got the job done, we stepped inside to see our new tent. Realizing that half of the tent doesn't have a floor! My husband and I take the side of the tent without the floor. Hoping it wouldn't rain and get our bedding wet. Luckily it didn't. After waking up the next morning to the sound of wining dogs, that needed to go out.
Trying to find their leashes and wondering where you put them the night before, being so tired that you can't remember. Here we were with 4 kids and 3 dogs, the whole family gang had come. We have a Doberman, Rat terrier, and a Chihuahua our kids ages ranged from 3 to 12 at the time of our trip.
Once I found their leashes and took them out, we had decided to move camp closer to the out houses for convenience. After doing that and making breakfast we then decide to walk some trails. Which the heat was so hot that we didn't get to far before we decided to turn back to camp.
My husband and one of our daughter went to the boating dock to get some more ice for the coolers. When he got back we took the kids to the play area to let them swing and maybe give us a break from all of the nagging. Coming back eating lunch and planning what we were going to have for supper that evening.
Once supper was over we decided to go up to the shower houses to clean up and to get all of the sweat, dirt, and smelling ripeness off of our skin. Just so that we could do it all over the next day. Just when we thought we had the kids tucked in bed and they were asleep, they weren't. Thats when the Raccoons decide to come out and raid every ones camping area.
Just got into bed ourselves and outside of our tent you could hear the coons fighting over any little scrap of food they found in trash cans or on the ground. Our oldest daughter swears that they are after her to eat her! The coons would get to hissing, scratching, and fighting one another and our daughter would be like "Dad there is something chomping outside of the tent and its going to eat me"
We would tell her that they weren't after her but she didn't believe us. She kept us up most of the night. Waking us up about every 5 minutes saying there going to get me, they are chomping waiting to get into the tent to eat me! Our other daughters just sleep right through it all. Having a 12 year old daughter sleeping right up next to me in the middle of the tent where she couldn't get eaten is not my idea of sleeping peacefully.
She was swearing that they were trying to get into the tent. I told her that is why you don't keep any food in the tent so that they won't come inside the tent. Didn't matter they were just after her and not the food! She still hates raccoons and when we see one on the road driving at night she begs me to run it over. Just so that it won't follow us home and try to eat her! She gets mad at me when I just honk and let it run off.
To our surprise when we got up the next morning we knew exactly what they were fighting over! They had gotten into our cooler and strung our food from there to kingdom come. The mess that we had to clean up, we told our daughter see they weren't trying to eat you. They were fighting over our food.
I don't think anything in this world would ever convince our daughter that those coons weren't after her. When the day to finally go home came, we all were never so glad to pack up! Taking down camp took half the time that putting it up did. Having one shower in the house is a terrible thing. Cause we all wanted the shower, to get the wonderful great outdoors off of us!
Getting home was like a dream come true for us all. Sure makes you realize that having the phone ringing off the wall and the TV blaring in the background is a blessing. Still yet we do go camping 3 to 4 times every year if not more!
We did ask our daughter how she would like a pet raccoon for a new pet, her reply was: "I don't think so, coons are evil!"