But I'm getting ahead of myself. A week ago David said to me "I'm off work at 2 this Friday, and then I have all day Saturday off, we should do something Friday night. Let's go to the zoo in Moncton!" Those words sent off warning bells in my head like you wouldn't believe. I don't like zoos. I don't like looking at the caged animals and spending $40 for a crummy hot dog for lunch or listening to people yelling at the children or posing for photos.
And so I didn't want to go to the Moncton Zoo. I said so to David and he got all huffy in that way that men do when they're trying to make you believe 'I just wanted to offer a special wonderful treat to the family and you're shooting me down!' and the reality is 'I need to get outta town, woman! Stop shooting me down!' So I suggested camping. Let's go camping for a night, I said (half-heartedly - 'cause I'm not really a 'let's throw away plans and wing it' kind of gal). David jumped all over that suggestion like white on rice. I imagine that visions of kumbiya floated through his head, followed by giant barbecued steaks and looking at the stars. What floated through my head was the less poetic thought of me having to pack for a solid week for us to go away for a night.
I'll admit, I sort of hoped David would somehow let the idea drop over the coming week. But instead he arranged to borrow a tent and a bug shelter from a neighbour. And we started the inevitable, multi-day discussion entitled: "What are the Elliot-Presleys going to eat?" Does anyone else play that fun game with their spouse? It goes a little something like this:
David: So, what are we going to eat?
Amy: Oh, I don't know. Hamburgers?
David: I was thinking hotdogs.
Amy: Fine, whatever, hotdogs it is.
David: Or sausages.
Amy: We could see if they have those veggies sausages at Sobey's!
David: No, I'm thinking more than that, those come in fours.
Amy: So get 2.
David: Hey what about steak?
Amy: That's expensive.
David: Not if we go to Franks.
Amy: So, then, what are we going to eat?
David: How about hamburgers?
I think that conversation might be the cause of more divorces than you may think. Once I reconciled myself to the fact that we really were going camping and the site was booked and the credit card was charged and there was no way out of it, then I started to get a bit excited. Sure, I've never really camped before, but I've slept in a tent many times in backyards or while tree planting up North, and sleeping in a tent is, like, half of camping. The other half is cooking over a fire, right? And I can cook over a fire. Up at my cottage I cooked a Thanksgiving turkey over a fire (a not entirely misguided attempt to get David to fall in love with me and marry me and be in awe of my abilities back when we were just dating) and so I imagine I can cook over a fire again if I had to.
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| How much food to bring? Well, if you're an over-planner *ahem*...then THIS much. |
So anyway we get a late start Friday. By the time David got off work I was pulling my hair out over the tantrum-ridden child who has recently appeared in my home and appealed to my husband's sense of humanity to take the baby somewhere, anywhere, so that I could pack. "Be back in 45 minutes" I said. An hour and a half later they waltz in the door. We don't arrive at our campsite until 4:30. Samuel has asserted his independence by refusing to eat or nap most of the day, so he's just charming, as you can imagine. We prop Samuel's carseat up, strap him into it and ply him with dried apricots to keep him occupied until the tent can get set up.
Now, when David borrowed the tent from our friend Paul he said, very clearly: "Hey, Paul, so can we put this up quickly together so you can show me how it goes?" And Paul said "No, man, this is your standard tent. If you've put up a tent before you can do this." And David, my sweet, clearly naive husband, believed him. And took the tent without trying to put it up first. The tent took us about an hour and a half to put up! It was unlike any tent we had ever used before and required that you tether the fly under the tent, and then put up the fly on it's own, THEN put the tent up, with the poles facing inwards hooking into the fly with latches coming up from the tent into the fly. It was horrific. By the time it was up it was about 6:00. The baby was clearly very hungry, and very hot. We gave him a piece of bread and tried to tackle the pool.
Well, we got lost en route, but after wandering around an RV camp in our bathing suits (a humbling experience right up there with beautiful student nurses assisting at your birth) we found the pool and had a nice swim. We got out when the baby was shivering too much and headed back to the site, and actually I was optimistic again. The hard part was behind us, it would be smooth sailing from now. We'd start a fire, cook some food, put the baby to sleep and then have a romantic gaze at the stars together before turning in for a restful night with lots of fresh air to lull us to sleep.
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| hammering tent pegs. |
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| pumping up the air mattress. |
We couldn't get the fire started. Newsprint, twigs, dried grass, nothing seemed to be catching enough to start our logs. David disappeared for half a hour to try and buy kindling off of someone on the kindling black market whilst I did my best to warm up our child, who really got a chill from the pool. The fire starting was epic. Epic. It had to have been 8:00 by the time anything was actually cooked. When we had rented the site we were told campfires were absolutely allowed, and since it's a family campsite, I don't know, I just assumed that meant a grate for cooking came too. It did not. I was trying to balance the cast-iron pan on logs that were shifting under the weight and burning at the same time. By the time we got a hot dog cooked the baby was frantic. We'd been soothing him with a lot of nursing, grapes, cheese and whatever we could find at the top of the cooler, but once he saw meat, man, that was it. He was choking it down in a panic.
And after we'd eaten we headed inside to get him to sleep. Which is when we really discovered that the air mattress was, um, flatter than it had been. Further pumping resulted in, again, a flat mattress as soon as you sat on it. As a result it was nearly impossible to get the baby to agree to go to bed, because we were sleeping on a tarp, on the ground. With a big deflated balloon on top of it. He was having none of that. He finally fell asleep, just exhausted, around 9:30.
David, who'd been up since 5, looked at me and said "I'm going to bed." So much for romantic star-gazing. Instead I got to think mean thoughts about the five million teenagers playing on the play structure 30 meters from our tent and the group of college students having a beer party beside us. Finally I banked the fire and went inside where I discovered that despite going through the bags with a fine toothed comb before I left, I had only packed one adult-sized long sleeved shirt. And 1 blanket. For all of us. The ground was rocky and terrible, it was so very cold and we wore t-shirts. We huddled the baby between us to keep him warm. I think he might have eaten a bit of green apple from the tree on our site because at around 3:30 the diarrhea started. Thank goodness I packed disposables.
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| this is what I look like after 3 hours of sleep. It isn't pretty. |
We woke up at dawn. I started the fire, which was less trouble than it had been the night before. I did manage to start a grease fire bcooking the bacon but other than that it was all pretty standard. After breakfast David said "I think I felt rain". Rain? And no sooner had we mentioned it than the skies opened up and it poured.
During a lull in the downpour I looked at David and said "The baby is cutting teeth, we have both spent the night sleeping on gravel. We haven't eaten anything that wasn't raw or burnt in 24 hours and I am NOT hiking 10 minutes to use the bathroom again. I want to go home. I need an Advil." And David remembered his wedding vows and said "okay". And we carted our stuff to the gatehouse and left.
