TRSP - 10% chance, Part I

First off, if you haven't been to Turkey Run State Park, you should take a day and go.  Pack a picnic basket and head north.  It isn't terribly far and is a very well-kept park.  There are lots of nice trails, a pool, horseback riding (rentals) and the canoeing option.  There is also a very nice Inn you could stay in.

We made it camping the whole four days without any major mishaps.  One of the boys got pretty skinned up from a bike accident (that's a given...someone will wreck), but it wasn't horrible.  And he didn't cry either...so that was a plus.

It's funny, in the week preceding our little camping trip, I checked the weather daily.  All along it looked like it was going to be pretty hot (90s+) but dry.  Possible chance of rain or storm on Sunday, but it was just a slight chance.  My last glance at the forecast showed 10% chances of rain.  Friday I decided to not even look because, at that point, we were going regardless.  I had several people say, "Oh, it's going to be so hot this weekend."  My response was, "We'll be okay, we're going to go canoeing one day and they have a nice swimming pool, so at least we'll have ways to cool off."

Friday evening after setting everything up, we began to prepare for supper.  The menu for the first evening was hamburgers, porkburgers, hot dogs and potatoes and carrots (with butter) cooked in a foil pan on the grill.  We had just about finished peeling and slicing all the veggies when we noticed it getting very dark to the north.  After a quick review of the radar on a fancy phone and a call from the Quackdaddy asking if we were okay, we realized we were about to get hammered and there was a possibility of hail and high winds.  Joy.

Everyone took cover in their campers and I continued to work on the taters and carrots in our camper.  We had two large foil pans full and ready to cook.  My fear was the potatoes would start turning black:(  Thankfully, we're not just ordinary campers.  We're resourceful, redneck campers.  Covering the blazing fire with a pancake griddle thing and some foil and moving the gas grill under an awning were the answers to a hot, yummy supper.

It was so funny during the rain I was in our camper and I happened to look out the window toward the others...all I could see was a bunch of smoke.  It was pouring.  And that was our fire.  It continued to blaze.  When the rain stopped, everyone else was scrambling to build a fire with wet wood, ours just kept on burning. 

One camper in our camp family has a slight leak.  I say slight, but really that is untrue.  It's more like Niagara Falls.  Thankfully, duct tape arrived just in the nick of time, and would you believe, sealing that slide-out with the tape kept the camper dry?!  May have looked a tad funny from afar, but that silver tape was a Godsend. 

We had regular visits from our fury friend, the Raccoon.  There are certain aspects of camping I forget about until I'm face to face with them...coons are one of them.  We had left a large red tote outside the camper under the table and awning with food supplies.  We would just get things out of it as needed.  Items like: gravy mix, marshmallows, hot dog buns, powdered sugar, Kool-Aid drink packets, etc.

Little by little things started disappearing from our red tote, and we would see the leftovers near the woods behind the camper.  We were blaming our children and the other children for getting into the tote, pulling stuff out and leaving it on the table, which invited the coons over...until I came around the corner and saw the Raccoon walking away from the red tote with a bag of powdered sugar in his mouth.  I went to the red tote and saw the muddy footprints all over the lid.  What a stinker.  The rest of the weekend, someone would ask for something after not finding it and we would just say the Coons must have gotten it. 

There was a sign warning us to treat the wildlife humanely...to me, there is nothing humane about the condition that poor coon was in after eating a bag of Kool-Aid drink packets, multiple bags of marshmallows and buns, a bag of powdered sugar and a package of peppery gravy mix - and that was just at our camper; he borrowed from the rest of our group too.  We did leave him alone, and although many, many traps were set by our inventive young campers, he escaped capture.

One of our guys walked into the men's bathroom and there was a big, 'ole black snake curled up in the middle of the floor.  He just pushed it on outside the door.  Ugh.  I am so glad that snake had the wherewithal to go into the men's restroom and not the women's.  There could've been a much different outcome there with a lot more hoopla.

Stay tuned for Part II of a 10% chance as we continue makin' memories...