Camping!

For Father's Day, and in celebration that school is over, we went camping - only an hour away. The kids couldn't have been more excited leading up to it. Our campsite was ideal - all in shade, right next to the playground so the kids could play while we stayed at camp, and right next to the bathrooms with hot showers. The girls had a ball playing at the playground with the other kids camping there. We also did a scavenger hunt, looking for things like "moss on a tree" and "garbage can" and "puddle" etc. Caroline lost interest in that immediately, but Nikki and I had fun searching the camp grounds for the 24 items. We found almost all of them. We arrived Friday evening in time to set up camp and have smores. On Saturday, after our scavenger hunt, we went to the boardwalk at Pt. Pleasant Beach. We played mini-golf (Doug won, BUT BARELY!) and rode carnival rides, ate fudge, cotton candy, sour gummi-worms, etc. It was a gorgeous day and the beach was filled. We didn't go on the sand though, because, like almost every beach in this state, they charge you and we weren't willing to pay $7.00 per person just to get our feet wet. The boardwalk had plenty for us to do. When we returned to camp, we set up a little wading pool for the girls to splash in and cool off.

Then we heard the ominous sound of thunder. I knew rain was in the forecast, but was hoping it would skip us. It was supposed to be isolated showers. It thundered for what seemed like hours without any rain. We had time to grill steaks and hot dogs, make smores and shower the kids during the thunder. When we were putting the kids to bed and Nikki had JUST fallen asleep, we heard an air-raid siren. Being from the midwest, we took that to mean TORNADO! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! So we scooped up the kids and ran to the bathrooms since it is a brick building with few windows. Nothing was happening yet - the rain hadn't started but you could smell it and feel the wind pick up. We noticed a woman sitting on the driveway of the bathrooms with people crouched around her. The kids were cold, so I went back to the tent to grab jackets and the backpack with first aid and rain ponchos in it. Just as I got back to the bathrooms, paramedics pulled up and the rain started. This rain was an absolute deluge of soaking wet, huge, cold drops. The paramedics brought the woman in a chair over to where we were standing under an awning and told us to move. Doug and the girls went one way, into the men's room, and I got seperated and moved to the women's side. I was holding the door open to let the light shine on the paramedics (there was no outside light) but they needed more. So they handed me a flashlight and told me to stand over the woman and shine the light on her fracture. It was gross. She was riding a motorized scooter and wiped out - probably breaking her leg bone about 2-3" above her foot. I was in the rain holding the kids jackets and the rain ponchos were safely in the back pack in the bathroom. I was soaked to the bone and freezing. When the loaded the woman into the ambulance, I asked one of them what the siren meant. He said it was to call the paramedics to the station. DUH! I grew up in rural Illinois where we had volunteer firemen who were called for a fire by a siren, but it sounded different. Tornados are not common in New Jersey. So we were out in the rain for nothing!

After about 20 minutes, the rain slowed to a sprinkle. We put our ponchos on, and walked back to our site. It was completely flooded with 1-2" of standing water. Our tent could not hold it back. There was leaking at the four corners, and a few other spots. Most things were dry, so after sitting in the van for a few minutes trying to decide what to do, we decided to pack up all the dry sleeping bags, clothes and food, and go home. We arrived home at midnight, and put the girls to bed (after removing a tick from Nikki's shoulder and Doug's hip) and showered. We returned to the campsite Sunday morning to pack up the wet stuff. Even though it ended so soggy, we didn't consider it to be a bad weekend. We got two nights of campfires and smores, and plenty of fun on Saturday. The rain drama didn't start until almost 10 pm. We like the campground, but next time will ask for a site a little higher up. Or maybe a yurt next time...