ALL WET
This is the sorry story of a camping adventure gone bad in 2007
My fingertips are nearly pruned from moisture and it is not because I’ve been soaking in a hot tub of scented bubbles. It all began with deprivation. My barely eleven year old daughter was feeling ever so deprived. Two months ago she made the most pitiful booboo face because she had never been camping in a tent. (Well, not that she could remember anyway.)
The story begins when I felt that annoying prodding maternal guilt and did what any good mother who had been depriving her daughter of nature would do – I agreed to go camping. I am all for being outdoors. I love the woods. If I have an ample supply of bug spray, I could be in the woods for HOURS. That said, I’m wondering about the Einstein who first suggested sleeping in the woods. What’s up with that? Okay, a recreational vehicle, or at least a pop-up trailer, then maybe. I’m thinking a lovely afternoon in the pristine forest and then a short air conditioned drive to your local resort (complete with linen service) is a more appealing form of camping. However, we have no trailer and Aubrey was so thrilled about the whole tent concept, so…..
The hunt for a camping destination started with an internet search. I entered the name of the town best chosen for its proximity to a waterfall my husband loves. Additionally, there was a local flea market which sounded interesting. Deciding on the town, I searched for the names of local campgrounds. I came up with three. The first required a camping association membership. The second was highly overpriced and sounded like a brochure for RV enthusiasts. The remaining campground did not have its own website, so I decided to depend on consumer reviews. I found two for the campground in question. Both sounded lovely. One undated entry was from a Phil adelphia
It took us two hours just to get 18 miles past our home. There were several last-minute errands like locating camp fuel, batteries, and lunch. We found some camp fuel at the third store. This was a good thing as the notion of cooking over the campfire did not hold much appeal. We were glad to have started early as we were beginning to feel frustrated in our search for supplies….
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Finally flying along the highway with walkie-talkies in hand, we were rolling along at a nice clip. According to our internet directions, the final stretch was a left turn onto Bramble Road Bramble Road Bramble Road Office to see if we could get some directions. We seemed to be in luck. Someone knew of the campground and some additional clarification of our directions was given. It seems that our internet map provider knew nothing of the last two roads between Bramble and our destination. Or maybe they were trying to protect us, we’ll never know. At any rate, we drove. We drove some more. We again drove a mile or two past the point at which we expected to come upon the road for our campground. Just as our collective patience had grown see-through thin we came upon a sign for our campground. Hmmmm, it didn’t look like anyone had bothered to paint it recently. Still energized by finding what we were seeking, we drove with hope into the campground. It took only seconds to realize that something was not right. There were buildings, most of which looked like double wide trailers. The first building to the left suggested that we Beware of the Dogs. The warning sign was unnecessary as we would not have ventured anywhere near that dilapidated looking residence. The second building to the left was labeled “REC ROOM.” There were several trucks, abandoned cars, and old wooden trailers near that building. It was a large building and looked very much like it was just standing around waiting for the man with the ‘Condemned’ sign or perhaps the ‘Crime Scene – Do Not Enter’ tape to arrive. Maybe that is why it was blocked with vehicles. There were more unsightly buildings to the left, but my psyche would not let me look that way anymore. To our right and sitting back a bit from the road was a yellow house. I use the word house loosely as again it was a double wide trailer which had at some point been accessorized with a small front porch. To the left of the ‘house’ there was what appeared to be the camp store. There was predictably a ‘closed’ sign in the window. We are relatively certain that no fireside supplies have been purchased there for several years. At least not legally. How odd that a campground office would be closed on a Friday afternoon. Oh how considerate, there were some instructional signs left on the door of the ‘store.’ The signs were printed with a marker and taped to the door. The first suggested going to the ‘house’ for assistance. The sign underneath instructed campers to ‘find your own site’ and ‘check in the mourning’ and perhaps worst of all, “we’ll be checking…” It was about this time that the five of us began to feel as though we had found ourselves in Chapter One of a Stephen King novel. It looked for all the world like the whole place had been abandoned 30 years earlier. My skin was crawling with goose bumps and a feeling of dread was settling over all of us. Thank heaven we hadn’t arrived in the dark. As instructed by the sign on the door, my brave husband ventured to the yellow house with my brave son in tow. Rachel consoled Aubrey who was becoming distraught and I began snapping pictures at what was shaping up to be a strange twist in what could possibly be our doomed camping adventure. The strange female ‘voice of the campground’ did not answer the door of the yellow house. We were not necessarily disenchanted as the five of us came to consensus pretty quickly that we’d rather tent in the back yard than stay on the scene of our own private horror movie. We made haste as the skies above began to darken.
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What are we going to do now? As we put some distance between ourselves and the freaky campground, we phoned information for the number of the previously mentioned ‘RV Heaven’ campground. They could give us a site for tonight, but nothing for Saturday night. We stopped by a little market where Jim entered to ask a ‘local’ about area campgrounds. I could not see him from our car, but I was communicating with Isaac and Rachel by walkie-talkie. They informed me that Jim was conversing with a very large bald man who was wearing an earring. They said he looked just like a Genie. I suggested that perhaps the Genie would grant our wish and find us a campsite. Upon Jim’s return we found out that the Genie would not be granting our wish as he knew nothing about any local campgrounds. Adding insult to injury, we were told that HE was actually a SHE and that she was sporting a scary pair of skeleton fabric pants. This was par for the course as we were now CERTAIN we had entered the twilight zone. The dark skies turned into loud booming flashing leaking skies and we drove on. We drove some more while calling our comforting church camp Spruce Lake to see if they had any accommodations of any kind for the weekend. We were not at this point looking forward to setting up three tents ANYWHERE as the ground was quickly becoming a wading pool. Motels were looking appealing. Sadly, even Spruce Lake
We effectively avoided having to set up camp in the rain as by the time we found the campground, the storm had passed. We were thrilled and relieved to see a brightly lit and cheerful camp store when we entered the driveway. The cozy log building was complete with red geraniums in flower boxes on the porch railing. There really were camp staff persons and they even wore matching green campground polo shirts. We drove around and picked out two camping sites from the map of availabilities. We managed to set up camp quite professionally for a bunch of amateurs. Isaac was relegated to our old mildew-smelling two man tent. Rachel and Aubrey would sleep in the new blue backpacking tent. Jim and I had a nice big tent, complete with front screened in porch. We told Isaac he could stay with us but he was not interested. We were not insulted. The best part of the big tent was being able to stand up to get dressed. Maybe tent camping wasn’t so bad after all…. We had a nice dinner out in a nearby town. We returned to our campsite, sprayed ourselves from head to toe with insect repellant and made blueberry and apple mountain pies in the fire. With the possible exception of being eaten alive by mosquitoes despite all the chemicals, all was well.
Saturday morning arrived and there were pancakes and sausages on the Coleman Stove. The shower was less than appealing but we managed to get clean. We went to the aforementioned flea market and did find some bargains. We arrived back at camp just in time for the second big storm of the weekend. The kids retreated to our big tent where they played games and tried to stay cool with the handy-dandy battery operated fan. Jim and I sat across the table from each other attempting to ignore the gallons of water dripping off every low-lying area of our dining tarp. We watched as drops turned to puddles and puddles turned to rivers in and around our dining area. Occasionally the tent zipper would open and one of the kids would scream something inaudible as the storm roared loudly and the pounding of water on the dining tarp roof sounded like a full percussion section.
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During a tiny break in the precipitation, we managed to make three plates of turkey and cheese subs which we literally ran over to the tent, dodging large raindrops falling from the trees. Though I would have preferred that there be no eating in the tents (as a small black bear had been reported) our children and Rachel were certain that starvation was imminent. The rain continued in fits and starts. It was then we remembered how diligently we had waterproofed every seam of our old tent when we were in our twenties and with time to spare for things such as reading directions on new purchases. Isaac, in mildew paradise, had the only waterproof tent among us. The large tent, though airy, was leaking like a sieve. Puddles of clear rainwater were appearing at various points inside. The backpacking tent was following suit. The air mattresses would double as rafts. There were several significant flooding issues occurring under the dining tent. Jim and I attempted to shore up the dining area with additional ropes being slung around nearby trees. We did this in the driving rain – Jim slinging the rope and me following him like a member of Michael Jackson’s posse with a large umbrella unsuccessfully trying to keep us both dry. The additional ropes worked great; affording us with a somewhat drier dining area and the added bonus of several more feet of clothesline which would be needed; as before long 90% of the fabric we had packed would be dripping with water.
The rain did slow down some. It was noted that our decision to avoid an earlier offered riverside campsite had saved us from floating down the Delaware River . The nearby bathhouse (and again I use a term loosely as no true bathing was occurring in the one shower stall cement block restroom) had become more of a wet mud hut as campers brought with them enough wet mud on their shoes to keep a wallowing pig happy for his entire lifetime. The mud floor was not an obvious restraint to these nature lovers, however. Campers of the female persuasion were lined up almost constantly for a chance at the sad little shower stall. They stood there looking pitiful with handfuls of towels, toiletries, and feet covered with mud. The thick wet mud layer would stay in the bathhouse for our entire stay, causing us to lift our feet to unreasonable heights when walking, not to mention the difficulty of holding up one’s long pants while attempting NOT to sit on the toilet seat. Long pants? Oh yes, long pants (at least for Rachel and I) because regardless of the hot humid weather we did not want to offer our leg skin so willingly to the millions of insect vectors waiting to pierce us. We were, after all, beginning to resemble pink mountain ranges as our particular blood seemed so much more delicious to mosquitoes than that of our male counterparts. Did I mention that we purchased Skin-So-Soft Oil at the flea market? The three kinds of bug repellant did almost nothing to protect us. In our attempt to stop scratching and hopefully avoid contracting West Nile Virus, we doused ourselves in so much oil we became slippery to the touch for the remainder of the weekend. Scratching our assaulted skin and trying to mop dry our belongings; the weather finally seemed to clear. We saw a big enough piece of blue sky to patch an old man’s britches so we determined to drive to Jim’s favorite waterfalls for some hiking.
Following some old directions, we found the approximate location of our former hiking experience. We discovered that ‘improvements’ had been made to the hiking trails and to the outlooks. What some might consider progress, we by and large considered disappointing as we could no longer access our favorite part of the falls. We could not swim at the base of the falls and we could not effectively get Jim and Isaac into the coveted area for climbing the lower tier of the falls. It became clear that the local authorities were trying to prevent persons from swimming and climbing in the dangerous slippery falls. They were obviously avoiding lawsuits and 911 calls - how inconsiderate! We hiked the trails that the ‘new system’ had to offer. The falls were still amazingly beautiful, though it was no longer possible to see them at full view. There were now railings all over the place. Jim and Isaac could not keep themselves from climbing past at least one such railing to revisit some snaking river and rocky cliffs of years ago. As Rachel, Aubrey and I were making our way down toward the creek below; we became dismayed to realize that the sound we were hearing was not just the rushing falls. It was additionally the rushing raindrops which began falling on us in force through the majestic soggy trees. Being wet was beginning to get really old. The frequent signs declaring that Smokey the Bear has determined the fire hazard to be LOW were also getting quite annoying. We attempted to use a huge tree as an umbrella while waiting for the guys to return. They came back to us, not seeming to mind the rain pouring on their heads as they were already drenched from head to toe from falling into the water. As the most recent cloudburst slowed to a drizzle we tempted fate and continued our hike to the bottom of the creek.
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There was fossil finding and creek walking. Great big shock, the bugs were biting. If possible they seemed even more aggressive than our campground bugs. It was growing more hot and humid by the minute. We scaled the mountain to get back to the car and were rewarded with some wild raspberry bushes at the top. You know all those nature manuals that suggest staying behind railings and not eating wild berries? Somehow Camper Jim didn’t read that chapter.
We went back to the campground and attempted to dry off. (Yes, this is a recurring theme…) To accompany our side items, we made hot dogs on roasting sticks in the fire. Aubrey managed a second degree burn of the finger from inadvertently touching the hot metal, but she was fairly brave and ended up being the only hot dog victim. Her brother, intent on making Rachel the hamburger of her dreams, resurrected an old camp recipe for cooking in the fire. He instructed me to purchase cabbage leaves, which I dutifully managed. He wrapped the poor unsuspecting hamburger patty in the cabbage leaves and closed it all in aluminum foil, plunging it into the hot coals of the fire. The cabbage reeked to high heaven but sweet loyal Rachel ate the burger, and even some of the cabbage; remarking that watching Isaac was just like the Food Network Channel on cable. Love is most assuredly blind and appears to have difficulty with tasting as well. We cooked the rest of the burgers on the camp stove. Following dinner we began assembling the crown of the camping experience - s’mores. They were delicious but our fireside exploits were cut short when the thunder, lightning, and rain drops began falling. The five of us (now with assorted very wet towels hanging down and draping over our crowded shoulders under the dining canopy) were trapped. We attempted to play cards but were terribly distracted by the torrential rain hammering away at our dining tarp roof and spraying in at us from every direction. We sat sandwiched like sardines, trying to stay to the middle of the bench as the splashing water was coming from all sides. Aubrey began to melt down as the rain was so loud we couldn’t hear ourselves think and the night had become as black as can be. What could we do? The tents were nearly as wet inside as we were outside and to get there we’d have to run at breakneck speed just to drench ourselves while trying to unzipper a doorway and nosedive into the tent. All this while trying to remove our muddy leaf compost encrusted shoes; as we soon learned that unless we removed our shoes upon car and tent entry, every bit of floor surface was starting to look just like the bathhouse. We had three overused, smoky, underachieving citronella candle buckets burning brightly. We lit them constantly, hoping that the rumors of their effectiveness would be proven. From what we could see, the citronella isn’t so much an insect deterrent as it is a heated swimming pool of wax for an unbelievably huge variety of stupid suicidal bugs. Several mosquitoes were spotted just sitting poolside on the rim of the bucket enjoying the steam. The ancient and finicky Coleman lantern was our only other source of light so after several minutes of heavy rain, we began turning flashlight beams toward the leaf covered ground to watch the river rising under our feet and around our picnic table. Our once blazing fire was by this point fizzling but still amazingly tenacious considering the driving rain which was filling our fire ring like an aquarium. Jim squashed my effort to stuff my car full of wet things and drive myself and Aubrey home to our own dry beds for the night. I don’t know which he hated more – the idea of packing us up or the idea of us driving home with no sense of direction in the blinding storm. As we became wetter and wetter, we hatched a plan to get the girls into a more secure-feeling environment for the night. Jim would sleep in the backpacking tent and the girls would move into the big tent with me. This move was a lot more complicated than it sounds as there were air mattresses, pillows, sleeping bags, and clothing to be moved and it all had to be accomplished in the rain. It was mayhem. Soggy, ridiculous, mayhem. I was in charge of ‘big tent preparations.’ That meant trying to throw all of Jim’s stuff into a heap to be shoved out the door when the crowd under the umbrella arrived at the zipper. I had my flashlight under my arm as I tried to maneuver around the waterlogged tent. Additionally, I was trying to dry the countless puddles of water which had formed hither and yon on the floor, on the sleeping bags, on the air mattresses, on my pillow, and on and on. I was asking for towels (okay, I was YELLING for towels) and my cohorts outside in the rain were trying to accommodate me, though all they had to offer were very damp towels which had been unsuccessfully ‘drying’ on one of our many clotheslines.
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I attempted to redirect the river in the tent with piles of towels. It was somewhat successful. I discovered my pajamas, swimming a backstroke in a particularly large puddle on the floor of the tent. I had left them carefully near my pillow on my air mattress in the morning – but that was SUCH a long time ago, way before raindrop stained turkey subs and waterfall tourists who don’t obey the signs. I would sleep in my t-shirt (if I could find a dry one and that would be a long shot.) I finally managed to make room for a queen sized air mattress and my wet family started shoving it through the tent door. It was wet.
By the time we’d trudged to the mud bathhouse for bedtime necessities we were all pretty much exhausted. The heaviest rain and accompanying electrical fireworks had mostly ended and a steady drizzle had taken its place. There were frogs, bugs and new mushrooms sprouting everywhere in this ridiculous rain forest. The girls went to bed soon thereafter, to float upon our air mattress rafts and listen with dismay as a passing nighttime cloudburst would send things dripping unseen but easily heard into our foolishly unsealed tent. There were reports of the smoldering fire somehow springing to life after the rain was mostly passed. That fire was unbelievable and gave us a whole new respect for the difficult task of a fireman. If an aquarium ring of pounding rainwater doesn’t put it out, how can a fire hose?
Sunday morning when I navigated my way around the air mattress I was too damp and too grouchy to care much if I had a shower. This, more than anything else I’ve said should tell you how beaten down I had become. I go NOWHERE without a shower. Ever. I grabbed my toiletry kit to go and brush my teeth. There were strange things to behold on my walk to the bathhouse. Our neighbors to the right had hung their tent upside down from their canopy like an oriole’s nest in a vain attempt to prevent further moisture. The fog on the inside of the car windows gave away the embarrassing camper secret that they had given up and slept in the car instead. The people across the street had removed ground cloths from beneath their tents and positioned them as protective tarps above their tents. Everyone was going bonkers. When I entered the bathhouse I found myself strangely alone except for the mud. Driven to distraction by the weekend of humidity or just temporarily insane from realizing I could enter the shower without standing in the mud line, I did something a little odd. I showered without a towel. I tried to console myself with the fact that the towels aren’t that dry anyway so why should I bother walking back and losing my place in line? The shower felt great. The water was even warm. I had no tangible way to dry off. There wasn’t even a single paper towel left in the dispenser since everyone at the campground had been flooded out. I tried shaking like a dog but realized I don’t have the correct layering of muscles for that drop-spraying move. I sacrificed my t-shirt and wadded up my hair. The desire to be clean (or maybe the desire to be FIRST) drove me to the one thing I certainly didn’t lack. I was wet. Again.
Thankfully the rain was but a raw memory through the morning of packing up the wet EVERYTHING we own. I think we had twice as much weight in the cars coming home from all the moisture. If it had been raining the morning we left the campground, chances are very good that I would have tried to talk Jim into leaving the tents there and just GOING HOME. The probability is EXCELLENT that I will personally never need to use a tent again.
Jim somehow enjoyed the weekend. Isaac and Rachel would enjoy falling at the speed of light from the sky – as long as they are doing it together. Aubrey enjoys a good adventure and doesn’t mind being dirty and wet. Though I had moments of pleasure, I was by far the wet blanket – in every sense of the phrase. As expected, the forecast for the coming week is perfectly lovely.
A word of advice, don’t surf the internet when looking for accommodations. Be especially suspicious when there is no website. Call a travel agent. Get a recommendation from a friend. Read the fine print. I was still finding it hard to believe that there were actually two reviews for Ben’s Woods Campground so I pulled the printed materials out of my canvas bag on the drive home. I read it again and was AGAIN amazed at the glowing report. Getting ready to fold it to discard, I glanced once more at the misspelled title. Oh. Oh dear. Do I admit it? “Been’s Family Campground in Red Bank.” Where’s Red Bank…..?
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