Once Upon a 26th Birthday

Once upon a time, the Hubs and I went camping.

We ate the Taco Bell 12 taco party pack. Yes. We. Did.

We forgot the tent.Yes. We. Did.

We went home and got the tent.

I ate some chocolate.

I realized I forgot half the food for the weekend.

We set up camp.

We ate birthday cake by the campfire.

We laughed at stories about our baby boy and smiled for our baby girl.

We ate cheese balls. (At least I remembered the cake and cheese balls.  It's all about priorities.)

We jumped each time a crab apple fell from the tree on our site.

We found a minimum of 20 earwigs on our picnic table (I wanted to cry a little).

We went to bed under the stars.

We made coffee and breakfast tacos on a propane stove.

We drank our coffee from tin mugs. It just tastes better that way.

We talked about our hopes and dreams and our anticipation of the coming football pumpkin cream cheese donut season.

We talked about how next time we were going to really rough it and vowed to never again camp in an RV park because of things like loud generators and bachelors.

  (Blowing out my "candle"....hahaha aren't we funny?!)

And then, we went kayaking.

On a river.

...in the rain.

...in the cold.

...in the wet.

Did I mention the rain?

And the cold?

It started out pretty and fun.  The weather wasn't warm or sunny, but it was a pleasant 70 something degrees with slight cloud cover.  We were geeked to have escaped the bomb-dropping crab apple tree on our campsite and were excited to embark on a river adventure.  We had chicken Caesar wraps and a cooler full of drinks and a fishing pole.  It was gonna be good.

Then it started to sprinkle...

We kept paddling through the drizzle, but two hours into what we thought would be a three hour kayak trip, the heavens opened and it down. poured.  We had to pull ashore and camp out under the trees for a while. We huddled under our life jackets while the rain pelted our waterlogged selves.  And it wasn't a summer rain.  It was a fall rain.  A cold, hard, fall rain. We were so cold and wet, that were purple and shivering.  It was not my favorite.

 

I debated posting this goofy video for a variety of reasons including  the close-up on my lack of makeup, but I really feel like it encompasses the overall horror of the experience, so against my better judgment...

(*Don't forget to mute or pause the music at the bottom of the screen if you want to hear the commentary.)


I was ready to call it quits, but the Hubs is a Survivorman, so instead of starting a small fire and sending up smoke signals for some SOS like I wanted to do, we pressed on.

When the rain slowed, we hopped back in the boats, grateful that we only had an  hour left to go.  Except, we had FOUR hours left to go.  I'm not kidding you when I tell you it was the bean dip and my husband's impeccable sense of humor that got me through.  If it wasn't for the Fritos and my man, I'm not sure I would have made it.  That was one long, cold ride, baby.

 

(Water logged Fritos and Bean Dip. Yum.)

Around each bend we thought we'd see our landing site, but NO.  The Hubs put forth valiant effort to keep our spirits up, but by the time we actually saw the landing, we were all but sprinting for the finish line.  We hit dry ground and took off running through puddles to find a tent full of water, wet clothes, and wet blankets.  Win win win Lose lose lose.

After calling my parents to get a weather update and finding out that there was only more rain to come, we packed 'er up and hauled 'er out.  We stopped at a Big Boy on the way home for a hot cup of coffee and a warm dinner, and I'll tell you what, bad coffee and chicken strips have never tasted so good.

The weekend would have been a flop if not for my stud of a man.  He kept his chin up the whole time, regardless of the adversity (often including his soaked and cranky wife).  He faced it all with a smile and inexplicable enthusiasm for memories and the Great Outdoors. He didn't let any of it get to him- the forgotten tent, the missing food, the rain-soaked kayak trip- not even the Taco Bell gut bomb could take that man down.  There's nobody I'd rather river rat my way through the country with than that guy.  A big thanks to the Hubs for a fun (albeit wet) trip! He made this chick one happy camper...which is really saying something given the rain and the bugs. =)

Cheers!