Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Maybe Poker Just Ain't Your Game

The movie Tombstone is one of my favorites. A little odd, now, I guess, but when it came out I LOVED that movie. Eric and I have watched it countless times. It is violent and has its share of bad language (although not as bad as more recent movies) but it is an old west movies, and apparently, that's how old west folks talked. At least that's what Hollywood thinks. It also has tons of great one-liners, which brings me to the title of my post. There's a scene when Doc Holliday is playing poker with Ike somebody, who's not all that smart, and Doc keeps winning and Ike keeps getting more and more upset. Then Doc says, "Why Ike, maybe poker just ain't your game. I know, let's have a spelling contest!"

This quote came to mind as I was pondering what I would write about our weekend camping trip. It became clear to me that camping, in a tent, is NOT for me. To explain everything in one post would take way too much time so I'll break it up for you into camping trip #1 and camping trip #2 because we did try, twice, to have a good time.

Camping trip#1:

We left after nap time on Sunday and headed for Roosevelt State park which is just 45 minutes away (this became the saving grace of the whole experience). Let me back up a tiny bit by saying it had been raining for about 3 days prior and the forecast kept saying it would clear up Sunday and be pretty for our trip, which was to end on Tuesday afternoon. We had the reservation and the stuff and felt like things may be wet and drippy, but the kids were excited and we would press on. Jaylie began running fever Saturday night, but was good to go on Sunday. We got there and got the tent set up with no incidents. We were feeling pretty confident. Eric and Isaac began to make a fire to fix burgers on while I prepared the bedding and everything like that. As soon as he put the burgers on, it started to rain, just a little, and then harder and harder. We begin quickly getting the rest of the stuff in so it wouldn't get soaked. Eric determined to fix the supper in the rain, which wound up not working. The kids and I huddled in the tent, listening to the downpour and they were hungry. It was about 7:45 and it had been raining almost an hour. I decided to just make sandwiches and then discovered that I hadn't put the lunch meat in! Well, we had peanut butter, but I forgot the jelly! Eric tramped around outside getting things settled and then came in, soaked to the bone, toweled off and changed into dry clothes. Then we sat down to a meal of chips, Cheetos, crackers and cheese, carrots, apples and chocolate chip cookies. I took Jaylie and Ethan to the potty (luckily we were right by the bath house and I had an umbrella) and on the way back, my chest began to tighten up. I have never had an asthma attack before, since I don't have asthma, but I began to have a real hard time breathing. So we got everyone changed and in the bed and then discovered that there were raindrops coming in in several places. After some readjustments of the beds we settle in. The boys dropped right off, wet places not withstanding, Jaylie got in bed with us since her bed had too many wet places and we tried with all our might to rest. But I continued to cough and wheeze. Finally after trying, and failing to get it under control, Eric decided that we would go home, hauled the kids to the car (still pouring down rain, mind you) and home we went, trusting all our things to God that they would not be ruined in the morning. It was about 10:00
I called my mom on the way home because she had been using our nebulizer (she has bad asthma and the yellow dust {see previous post} hasn't been doing her any favors) as I thought I'd need it. We swung by their house and picked it up, ran the kids to bed and I settled down with my first ever breathing treatment. We got a dry night's sleep and woke up Monday, ready to re-evaluate. I'll pick up there tomorrow. After reading this much, it probably sounds like a National Lampoon's vacation or something. That first attempt was crazy.

I hope your weekend was much better than this:)
D

4 comments:

Eric Livingston said...

I'm your huckleberry.

MS grandma said...

Sounds like you got broken into camping really well !!! We could share many tales similar to what you have described thusfar. BUT, 30plus years later, we still go (and there's always a tale !!!) We just call it - making memories - and the grown up kids still laugh, and go with us every chance. Hang in there.
Charleen

Liz said...

I can only imagine the frustration! I'm surprised you gave it a second try.

Christy said...

haven't got to read the whole thing yet, but just had to tell you that we love Tombstone as well. A few weeks ago during spring break, Malcolm and I headed to Phoenix to meet up with some other church planters. We made a slight detour to go to Tombstone, AZ!! It was fun. We'd love to go back. See some pics on my facebook.