The kids and I went camping this past week, from Wednesday to Sunday, in French Lick, Indiana. There was a beautiful area for camping, a spiritual retreat essentially, and many of our friends were gathered there. My husband was unable to get the time off for this trip, and so we decided I’d go and take the boys with me. I have to say… it was rough.
Camping in the wilderness (no electricity, no camper, and one log cabinesque showerhouse) is normally spiritually fulfilling for me. I love to be in nature, to get away from jobs and cell phones and computers and tv for a while and just be. Without Mike there to help with the boys, however, the trip ended up being mostly quite stressful. It was wonderful to see old friends who I hadn’t had a chance to even talk with in forever. I guess the fulfillment was mostly social this year.
Before the Storm
I did enjoy some fellowship with other pagans, a few really nicely done rituals made the trip special as well. If it hadn’t been for the storm of the century that trashed our camp, dumped several days of rain onto us, and scared the hell out of my kids at 3:30 in the morning -the trip would have been all-around great. Friday night as a few of us sat around the fire reminscing and passing around various home made beverages we noticed a faint flickering in the northern sky. The hills out there were amazing, like mini mountains, and between a few of them there was a long distance of grass with a mud road (I’d say dirt, but the only days it didn’t rain were Thursday and Friday). Hoping it was just distant heat lightening, we made sure all the vehicles windows were up, put a few extra fly-lines on the screen tents where the food and coolers were kept, and went to bed.
I woke up to the sound of a fairly hard rain on the tent and watched for a minute as the wind pushed our tent canvas around a little. Thunder was rumbling directly overhead and as I waited the wall nearest our heads suddenly bowed inward hard. The baby woke up yelling “What’s happening?” and my 7 year old slept steadily through the frightening roar as I threw on clothes as fast as humanly possible. I could hear my friends with their 2 year old in the tent next door shouting to each other “I’m going to take (the baby) to the car!”. I shook Sebastian’s shoulder for nearly a minute, trying to wake him without frightening him (although my heart was about to pound out of my chest) when the tent suddenly seemed to come down around us -just as he woke up. He climbed out of his sleeping bag and I pulled Charlie up onto my hip with one hand while opening the tent zipper with the other.
Grabbing the florescent lantern, I rushed across about 40 feet of muddy grass while the others hurried from tent to tent making sure everyone was okay. The campsite lit up like a bright bluish midday each time the lightening struck, and I saw that two of our screen tents were gone -nowhere to be seen. The two pop-ups with metal frames were twisted into piles of canvas with people pulling down on the edges to secure the supplies and equiptment underneath them. I got the kids into the van and just sat with Charlie on my lap and Sebastian in the backseat and waited for my chest to stop feeling like it might explode. We slept in the van that night and got a hotel in the morning. Best night I’ve ever spent in a hotel, hands down.
Amazingly, no one was hurt at the whole festival. Probably about 7 screen tents and two 10 x 20 shelters were destroyed by what I can only describe as either a micro-burst or the edge of the nearby tornado that hit that night. The next day we found the two missing gazebos -one had landed in the woods after literally rolling OVER the tent me and the kids were in, and the other was all the way across the campground in a few different pieces. I’m REALLY glad to be home. More to come.
Well, July has been fun so far… Charlie got his first three bee stings, all at once. The kids were playing in the driveway near the back of the house, and when I went in to grab my camera he got into it with a few bees. We’ve got a wasp nest under the deck, so I’m thinking they were most likely the culprits. Poor baby was upset, but considering how bad they look he really didn’t cry for long.
Charlie has taken to standing on the damn thing, which I know can’t be good for it, and so in order to prevent him I created a magical talisman that my illiterate 2 year old must somehow understand. Anyhow, I was never much good at 2 dimensional graphic art (Translation: I can’t draw) and so this makes me proud.
