I Came, I Camped, I Conquered

 Every year for a few years now we say "this might be our last year". This statement becomes more and more likely to be true - the kids are older and have their own stuff going on, we're older and less amenable to sleeping in a tent, Matt's traveling EVEN MORE in the summer now. So of course this might have been the year I loved camping the most (apart from missing Angus terribly). We stayed five nights, the longest by one that we've ever managed before being chased home by weather, and while usually I'm amply ready to head home, this time I felt like I could have stayed days longer.

Partly it was because it wasn't sweltering hot all the time. Partly it was my glorious new double-height air mattress and the battery pack we had to buy. Partly I had improved the footwear situation somewhat. 

We got there Tuesday, the same day as one other family and the one single person, with two other families arriving the day after us and the last family two days later. We're usually behind by at least a day, and it was kind of nice not feeling like everyone was already there in full camping mode while we were lagging behind. Also, the other family invited us to forego the hot dogs we were going to have and join them for grilled salmon and potatoes with salad, so that didn't suck. It was kind of nice having a smaller campfire the first night while acclimatizing. 

The first full day was a perfect beach day, but when I emerged from our tent in the morning the air was not cool, but pleasant, rather than being a wall of heat. Rain was supposed to come overnight and intermittently the next day, but we just had a nice pattering rain shower overnight and the next day was lovely again. 

Thursday was the first night everyone would be there, and the night we were doing our group dinner - shredded Mexican beef sandwiches, charred corn salad with cilantro lime vinaigrette and molasses baked beans, and a watermelon vodka cocktail. 

We were on the beach at around three when suddenly the radar said 100% chance of rain at four. None of the promised rain had materialized so far, but the sky was looking rather ominous, so we packed up our beach encampment early and one guy, who we mock often and mercilessly for all the redundancies built into his packing, soundly beat us about the metaphorical heads and shoulders for our hubris by setting up two big shelters that basically covered our campsite for the evening.

We did manage to get everyone fed, and then it started thundering and lightninging and pouring. We all huddled together and drank stuff and laughed a lot and were happy not to be alone in our tents waiting for the rain to pass. There was a brief tornado warning and then a severe thunderstorm warning, but there was no wind, so we didn't feel unsafe, just soggy. Eve did crawl into her tiny cozy tent eventually, but was happy to have people nearby. Oh, we hadn't actually managed to feed everyone, because the last kid and his girlfriend arrived late after work, and still made their way over to join our damp splendour, which was quite impressive I thought. 

After two hours, the rain passed and some people went to bed and some of us went down to the beach to look at the stars. And that was the last bad weather we had until we left on Sunday.

I will add more detail and pictures later (you know I'm going to milk this for all its worth) after I catch up on all your blogs and do eight more loads of laundry.

(First day, when we were still clean and pretty)