Reflections on life with a camping man

Alright, another Sunday, another camping trip finished. This week we did have a bit of an exciting start to our trip. First of all, by some small miracle we got out of here by 4 pm on Friday and arrived at our mountain paradise a little past 5, so that was great. The love of my life was on the cell with his buddy and ended the call because he needed to try to fix the leak he'd discovered as we packed up to leave last weekend and wanted to get it done before dark.

Now let me qualify here for a moment, by saying that, while I do my fair share in taking care of all the laundry before and after each trip, doing the dishes while up there (I have a lot of modern conveniences up there, but they don't include a dishwasher), making sure the bunks have proper (and clean) bedding and keeping the trailer straitened up and making sure the kids are clean, I do have to admit that my dh does pretty much everything else as far as chores when we are there. In a trailer, among many other things, this includes lighting the water heater so I have hot water to do my dishes with, and making sure the water and electrical hookups are indeed hooked up. Let me also say that in the year+ that we've had the campsite, I have never, for any reason had to do anything involving the water hookup. That said, I can proceed in telling my story.

So, as I said, when we arrived, G immediately set about trying to track down the source of the leak and I kept the kids and the dog outside so they wouldn't be in his way. Well, I was sitting at the picnic table reading a magazine, Princess K was playing on the swingset and R was playing with the dog when all of a sudden I hear this sound of water gushing (not running mind you; gushing) and G starts yelling "TURN THE WATER OFF!!!!!!" "Where?" I called back. He said "Where the line connects to the hookup!" Huh? I had NO CLUE where he meant. So I said "Where is that?" Well, he lost it. He ran outside and turned the water off, and I must say he really did look pretty funny because he was dripping wet, all red in the face, muttering amidst a myriad of swear words "How long have we been campin here that none of you know where the *&%$# water connection is? We've got six *&%$# inches of *&%$# water in the trailer!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I have to say I felt really bad, because it seems like I should've known where the water connection was. But at the same time, as I said, I don't ever do anything involving the water connection, so how could I have known? But G is a good guy, and later on he actually apologized to me for getting so mad. He said "It's just that I was standing there, and the water was gushing out of two different places and I was trying to keep both of them covered with my hands to keep it from coming out and I had to let go to come out and turn off the water." Then, we laughed about it, because the mental picture of him trying to keep water from gushing out with only his hands really is rather funny. Sort of like the old story of the little boy who stuck his finger into the hole in the dam to keep it from flooding his village. And really, it wasn't as bad as "six *&%$# inches of water in the trailer". What water there was, was pretty much limited to the shower area, and so even though our bunk got splashed a bit, most of the water was contained and drained out easily enough.

Anyway, though, we had a good laugh about it. We really do have a lot of fun up there, and this season especially has brought us really close together. And see, I did find a picture of myself...Albeit an old one, but it is a picture of me, and a camping picture at that. I definitely need to get my butt on a diet, because looking at all these old pictures I was just digging through, it seems like as we age, the better G looks and the worse I look. But, I'm working on that too. I think I'm going to try the Special K challenge... It even has my initial in it. I've heard it can work, so maybe I'll give it a shot. Of course dieting would be easier if he wasn't such a damn good cook.

So, I guess I'll end this here, with a picture of G in his "happy place", which basically means on our mountain with a cold beer in his hand next to a roaring fire. This shot is another "oldie" so it isn't at our site, but it is, in fact, on our mountain, from the days when we used to tent camp. I hope you've all enjoyed this glimpse into my weekends away. If you can join us some weekend, let me know. ;)