Menage à Trois Bingo

Friday afternoon Jill mentioned that she was thinking of going camping with a group from one of her pagan mailing lists but was wavering because she'd heard there would be rain. I mentioned that I would be interested in going, and we heard a new prediction for highs around 69 and sunny all weekend.

So we agreed to meet at nine am Saturday and head for the woods. I went to the grocery store Friday night and bought food, since I no longer have camping equipment (Ray took it in the divorce) and would be borrowing hers.

We loaded up her minivan with ourselves, two of her sons and Rosa, and headed for Crab Orchard Lake in southern Illinois. It was about a two and a half hour drive, so we arrived around noon, put up the tent and cooked bratwurst for lunch. After lunch we all sat by the lake and threw rocks into it. Rosa refused to take a nap, but she was relatively good natured all afternoon anyway, and the three oldest of us played Uno while the youngest two played in the tent.

Toward dinnertime it was starting to threaten rain, and we tried to light a fire for marshmallows later. I think all of us but Rosa helped in the attempt, but despite burning every scrap of paper we could find and spare, no fire resulted. Meanwhile, the chili was simmering merrily, and after we ate it we made a few s'mores over the propane stove.

Soon it was time for Rosa to go to bed, and I got her into her pajamas and read her a story. But as soon as I tried to put her in bed, she started fidgeting, crawling all around the tent, and even yelling "I want to go home!" over and over. At last she collapsed, asleep, and I got out of the bed and played more Uno with everyone else. The final round lasted an eternity: I think we reshuffled the draw pile eight times before Tom finally won the round.

I went to bed, but did not sleep well. It had started to rain, and my bedding was already wet at the foot of the bed. I couldn't find anywhere dry to put my feet, so was forced to curl up uncomfortably into the dry parts of the bed. It rained all night. I must have slept some, because I don't feel like I've been up for 36 hours, but I can't have slept much.

After breakfast, we removed all the bedding and broke down the tent. There was an inch-deep puddle at the foot of my bed: and that's after quite a lot of water had soaked into my comforters. My purse was also soaked. Luckily neither my cell phone nor my Palm Pilot sustained any damage, but I had to bake my tarots to dry them, and my wallet was saturated. I baked it as well, which was a bad idea, as a couple of the plastic items inside got badly warped from the heat, and it was still wet afterwards, just hot and wet instead of cold and wet.

After breaking down the tent and spending a few more minutes by the lakeshore, we headed for home. And for the second day in a row, Rosa did not nap. She is now finally asleep.