SlangsFamily: Camping 2011

The first camping trip of the season was in April. We had been planning for the camping season since January. We had gone through all our camping equipment and organized it all. We had spent weeks looking online and in the stores for what would be the “perfect” family tent and we thought we found it. The weekend we purchased it we set it up in the family room just for fun. (The family room is 26’ long x 14’ wide and the tent was 20’ long and 12’ wide – we had to move some furniture!)

We headed out to Table Rock Lake and found what we thought was a great spot. We unloaded and set up camp.

It was dark by the time the tent was up and dinner was ready.

The kids went to bed after dinner and we cleaned up, it was a very nice evening, or so we thought. In the weee hours of the night, the wind began to blow. We woke up just as a gust of wind blew hard against the tent. The rain began to fall and another gust of wind created what we like to call – complete tent failure!! The tent broke and the rain came in and the kids were scared! We got the kids into the truck and proceeded to throw everything into its container and pulled up what was left of the tent and threw it all into the back of the truck. I don’t think I have ever pulled up camp so fast. LOL Cherilyn and I were soaked! We cleaned up in the camp rest rooms and headed home, it was around 5am.

Once home, we all crawled into our beds and slept another hour or so. To make the best of a bad situation, we did our camp breakfast on the grill on the back porch. Then we proceeded to clean up the camping mess.

Bacon, hash browns and hotcakes!

I really don't want to tackle the mess

the hastily loaded and all wet camping stuff

support pole bent in half

Tent stake hook torn from the tent

another support pole bent in half

the aftermath

pretty much a total loss

Needless to say, the kids were just a little apprehensive to try camping again!!

The next camping experience of the year was just me. I went on a one night trip to Stockton Lake that was organized for a large group of men and young men from church. This experience was not storm free but it was at least not nearly the experience had the previous month, just a small amount of wind with just a little rain. No need to pack up and leave in the middle of the night. I did get to use the newest addition to the camping gear – the Cabela’s deluxe camp kitchen! Along with some newly acquired dutch oven cooking skills.

awesome deluxe camp kitchen

sunset on Stockton lake

double Dutch oven

Meat! It's whats for dinner!

my humble tent - rear left

This was a good camping experience - on to the next one!! Which, due to the extremely hot summer and Cherilyn's recovery from her appendectomy, would not be until October.

With our new family tent purchased, we were ready to try our hand at camping again. (we were able to go to the store where we purchased the tent and discuss the “tent failure” and they traded us for the newer model of the same tent) We arranged a weekend trip to Table Rock Lake again, this time Cherilyn’s cousin and his family joined us.

too much stuff!

Saturday, after Cherilyn’s cousin and family left, we went out on our neighbor’s boat for the afternoon.

beautiful day on the lake

It was a fun time but evidently it was a little much for the young ones - drained them of all their energy.

Brittney was sooooooo tired

Carissa couldn't hold her head up any longer

After the recovery, we decided we had so much fun, that we should go again the very next weekend. So, the second and third weekends in October turned out to be great camping weekends. The second trip of October was to Roaring River