Saturday, May 31, 2014

A Camping Adventure, Day 1

161/365

Saturday morning, we woke up with a start, and started loading the car up to go camping at Lake Tipsaw in southern Indiana.  We estimated it would take about 3 hours to get there.  And our theory was that we'd meet up for lunch and caravan down.  I suggested Brozzini's, and told my Dad we'd be there in case he wanted to pop by.  He popped by all right, but we were tremendously late. We picked up Chris from his overnighter, and he'd had a great time.  Then I took him to his makeup Karate class.  We expected the car to be practically ready to go...only it wasn't.  And with all three yahoos running around, it took us a long time to get cooking.  It turned out my Dad was waiting on us all for lunch, and we were late.
Still, he was wonderful, and kept waiting for an hour until we got there.  So we started off our trip with a fabulous lunch with friends and family.  And it was good.


The kids were so excited to see each other.  
I don't think Chris and Emily realized until Thursday that we were going camping with both families together.  When I mentioned that Emily was done with school for the summer, he lost his mind, but we Have to see her, Tonight!  We will.  We will see them plenty.  Still, you'd think these kids hadn't seen each other in years the way they were running around being so nutsy in the restaurant.  



Still, my favorite part, was when we went to say Goodbye to my Dad.  He had brought me near tears after the wild and crazy, stressful morning, and making him wait, he bought our lunch.  When it was time to say Goodbye, the kids bowled Daddy and MB over with their loving.  It was kind of appropriate.  I would have, but they did it for me.  Then we hit the road....or at least we planned to. 

It took us another hour to leave Greenwood.  Mike needed more supplies from Wal-mart....on a Saturday afternoon, quite possibly the worst time to shop.   And then as soon as started moving again, the tarp on the roof of the car started flapping.  We stopped to tuck it into the doors, but it didn't work.  Every time we got above 60 miles an hour the flapping would cause problems.  An o-ring banging on the window.  We lost a sleeve of paper cups.  Finally, we pulled over again, deciding to take S.R. 37 down instead of I-65, we figured we'd have a better chance at staying under 60.  With lunch, shopping, and stops, it took us 4 hours to leave Johnson County.  



The big boys were stuffed and surrounded with stuff. When Daddy rearranged the top, the toilet went in by the boys.  They didn't care....as long as the ipad was working.  They watched Frozen and didn't mind that we were stopping every few minutes.  


One of our roadside stops.  I know they'll kill me for posting this. But we're stopped at the highway, trying to fix the roof, and the kids start griping how they have to pee.  So we went old school.  I must admit, I wish, as a girl, it was as easy for me to pee on the side of the road.  



We got into Southern Indiana, and started getting beautiful hills, and some delicious looking limestone rock. 

It took us almost 4 hours to take the alternate route.  We pulled into Hoosier Nat'l Forest, at Lake Tipsaw at 7:45 pm.  Eric had wanted to get an early start so that he wouldn't be putting up tents in the dark. 


But with all the drama, guess what happened? We put up tents in the dark.  


The kids brought their scooters, and we had a great concrete pad that they could skate around on.  


Jake was so happy to be out of the car, he didn't even mind letting Kathleen hold him while we did some unloading.  Well, not much.  See?!  It's almost a smirk. ;) 


Because Eric and Mike were putting up tents pretty late, it fell to Kathleen and I to start the fire and get dinner going.  Yeah.  That was about it. So we got pretty goofy.  I was amazed I didn't get so hungry and eat people.  Helps that we had plenty of snacks, and stopped for milkshakes, I guess.  Eric had picked up these great fire gloves for moving logs around.  And Kathleen and I got a little punchy with them.  

Just call me Dahling.

We didn't eat dinner until 10:30, the kids went down at 11.  And we were going to go to bed too, but we were so blithering we just sat and stared at the fire.  And the stars.  Oh the stars.  Way out there, in the middle of nowhere, the stars were breathtaking.  The sky was clear, it looked like we were smack dab in the middle of the Milky Way.  Traditionally, I say Leave the computers at home when you go camping.  But Kathleen had gotten a fancy app that finds constellations, and after the yahoos were all down, we were out in the street, surrounded by darkness, staring up, finding the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, and giggling about Bootes.  I forget how much I like Astronomy until I get surrounded by the stars in nature.  It was really beautiful.  And the perfect note to end the night on.  




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