Nat'l Lampoons Camping Trip...

A quaint campground nestled among a slightly wooded area that is surrounded by a heavily used Train Track, a cemetery, a major interstate and just a mile from a high security prison....is actually what the AAA camp book should've said. Now I must admit we own some of our own circumstances as we left a little late from the Lake on Tuesday to make our trek to St. Louis. Upon changing out of our swimsuits for the drive we discovered that one of the members of our party(who shall remain nameless) failed to pack any underwear, so we had to make a stop over at Walmart. We plugged in handy dandy Lola and she lead us there. Gps units will take you to your location using the shortest route possible....it doesn't however take into consideration the fact that 20 miles on a curvy, windy, hilly, wooded route will actually take you over an hour to navigate in the dark. Yes I said dark....when we arrived at the campground it was 9:45pm we found our site instructions pinned to the board outside the office as it was closed. When we found our site...pass the grave yard and down the hill....farthest from the bathroom possible, right next to the dumpster....we noticed that the sites had pea gravel pads that you needed to put your tents on. The site was probably a 10 foot by 15 foot site.....mind you when I reserved I told them that we had 2 kids tents to pitch as well.....not geometrically possible to fit in this space. The promised fire pit was a mere 2 foot from the edge of the camp pad (hello the tent will catch on fire with a mere spark...so no campfire for us...Smokey Bear would not approve) As Rob was checking out our options I had a pep talk with the kids....reminding them that we would have to work as a team to pitch these tents in the dark and that there was to be no complaining, or negative comments, we were going to have to make due....Jaydin was assigned to hold the lantern and Jeremey to partner with Rob to pitch the tents. I was in charge of praying that we all kept our cool, that things would go up smoothly, and that no loud cussing would wake the neighbors as we went about our work(as there was only 2ft and a 2x4 between each site) and of course saying how high when Rob or Jeremey said jump! An older couple walked by & asked if we were planning to use the Braille system to pitch our tent....yeah every one's a joker! We chuckled in good humor of course. Although the next day that man came up to tell us he was impressed and figured we must be professionals to be able to do that in the dark. Once the tent was pitched, Jaydin buried her face in my chest and began to sob....and said quietly " I thought you said this was a nice campground"....Oh it's going to be a great vacation!!!

Okay, Okay, so we didn't bring the dog so no risk of dragging it behind the car, Aunt Edna didn't die, our sandwiches didn't get soggy, and Six Flags Park was open. But we did however take over 1/2 hour to try to figure out how to use the train ticket computer to purchase tickets for the Metro train(to avoid parking downtown) only to determine that you needed cash to pay (that which we failed to have). You would think they would have an ATM machine handy, but No! We weren't the only rookies at this as a couple of older gentlemen came along and needed assistance. We talked them through it and then scrounged up enough cash or shall I say coins between us to get us round trip tickets for the day. The amenity of having a pool at our campground turned out to be quite dirty. We failed to pack silverware that wouldn't melt when stirring hot food over a campstove, as well as a can opener that which is useful in opening nonperishable cans. Speaking of perishables...the ants loved the bread and muffins that I made; as well, they enjoyed some of the crackers. Our air matress had a nice slow leak in it requiring reinflation every night. I managed to misread a map and take us on a wild goose chase to hunt down Ted Drewes Custard Shop (#1 ice cream in the St. Louis area). Why didn't we just use our GPS you ask...oh yeah...cuz it went dead on us....totally caput! And then to top off our Vacation highlights, we had a tire on the Van blow out on us, requiring us to put on the spare. Not a big deal right....well for those of you who have Stow and Go Vans....get a degree in engineering so that you can accomplish this task. Imagine me standing with the owner's manual reading the directions as Rob pulls out from the various cleverly hidden areas of the Van the: jack, and some other tools that assemble to create what we think is a crow bar and a wrench. Since we had never seen the spare tire....I began the praying mode again "please God let there be a spare under there, and please let it be good". Well, I believe God knew we were at our wits end because all was good and we got the tire switched out....took awhile and some self discovery, but we got it done. So we have just doubled the cost of our quick little cheap getaway at the end of the Summer!!!

Now I don't want to leave you with the impression that it was ALL bad. We did have a very good time and saw a lot of cool things. It was just not without adventure. Tune in later this week and I will have the TRUE Highlights of our trip. Jaydin summed it up when we got home today....Well, I'm going to have a great story to tell!