....And the Wind Blew...

This is Part 2 of the story of our Big Camping Trip. You can find Part 1 here. ('Cause it'll make more sense).

So we arrived at our beautiful campsite in the Sun Lakes State Park and started setting up camp. We had just finished setting up our tent, and were working on my step-brother DJ's tent when the wind started. And the rain. I did what any proper lady would do: I hid in the tent trailer and let the men do all the work. Unfortunately, that meant I didn't get any pictures. And it was pretty crazy. Or so I was told. And then the rain stopped.

So we all came out to check out DJ's condo tent.

It was pretty fancy, but I thought the spiral staircase coming up from the dining room was a bit much ;)

Once we had camp set up, we immediately got working on the food. There will be a separate blog post about the food. I might title it "Why I need to lose 5 pounds".

The kids got themselves busy playing in the dirt:

KK got some cuddle time with her newest cousin, Abby (after washing her hands, of course):

We grabbed a moment for some pictures, with those who were willing to stop playing in dirt for a moment:

And then we were treated to a gorgeous sunset, while we ate a yummy, yummy dinner:
And then the horizontal rain and winds started again. We quickly retired our card-playing plans and headed to bed for a very rough night. How rough? Well, the next morning:

Ok, he's still cute with a grumpy morning face, but seriously, the night. was. rough. Between being afraid our tent would get blown away over and that there might be serial killers in the bathroom (don't ask!), I didn't get much sleep. (If you knew me in my high-school days, you might be wondering why I didn't just use a cup. Believe me, if I'd had an appropriate container, it would have gotten some appropriate use!)

Fortunately, we had grandparents around to help.

The rest of the days were warm and sunny, but every evening, that crazy wind came up and lasted all night. Apparently, the second night it was the worst, but Peanut-lover and I were so exhausted that we slept right through it! Fortunately, it didn't really rain much after the first night, because our rain tarp's poles gave out in the wind the first night.

During the days, we kept ourselves busy with various activities. We did lots of sight-seeing (more on that in another post), golf, kite-flying:

Tent hiding


Swimming and outdoor bathing:

(Y'all can thank me for not posting the picture of Peanut-lover's bath)

We spent lots of time observing and discussing the other strange campers, such as the family that returned, rejoicing, from an outing with an as-large-as-their-van tumbleweed strapped to the roof of their van. I wish I was kidding.

Or the man who wore his safety vest the entire time he was camping. And his van that declared "Venomous cargo inside".

Or the frat-boy group that camped across the way from us, who drank themselves silly and then yelled at other campers to "shut-up or I'll call the &*$%# Ranger" at 1:30 am and had an hour-long shouting match over whether or not one of them had the right to drive his own vehicle regardless of how drunk he was (which also included many expletives and threats to call the Ranger).

We showered in 3 minutes. We drove long distances for electricity to make coffee. We wore the same dirty clothes every day. We wondered where JJ was and found he had put himself down for a nap in his bed. We ate ice cream. We never played a single game. We slapped mosquitoes. We slept in our clothes.

We had a great time on our first (and last according to Peanut-lover) tent camping trip.

Now... come back next post to hear about the food... don't be hungry.