We had been trying to go camping again for the past four weeks. The
first week we had problems with the wiring between our camper and what
turned out to be a huge and unexpected electrical mess underneath the
Suburban, which took much longer to square away than either of us had
anticipated.
The second week saw rain and unseasonably cold
temperatures.
The third week LCs' brother called to say that he
was coming for a visit from Minnesota. He showed up the day we had
planned to leave and stayed all of two days before turning around and
heading back to Minnesota. He does that kind of thing sometimes (don't
ask - we don't know)...............
Finally the wiring was good,
the weather was good, no more family was showing up unscheduled, and LC
and I thought that we were good-to-go. We'd go to Mud Lake. Boat.
Kayak. Fish. Take photos of abundant bird life and (if we were lucky)
maybe catch sight of a moose.
The plan was to leave early Sunday
morning, and return late Wednesday (in plenty of time for me to get to
something I was scheduled into in Blackfoot on Thursday). It was all
good...........
Saturday early evening I was in Blackfoot. As I was
getting ready to leave town I stopped at the Chevron gas station to pick
up an Invasive Species Sticker for my kayak.
They no longer sold
them.
Went to the sporting goods department at Walmart.
They did not
sell them.
Went to the sporting goods department at Cal-Ranch.
They
did not sell them.
Went to the Bingham County Co-op.
They did not sell
them.
And nobody knew where they DID sell them. I headed home both
surprised and extremely annoyed.............
Once I got home LC and I
finalized gear for an early Sunday departure. And then someone called
me. There were interested in buying our white water kayak. Could they come
and see it on the way home from Utah? Around 11:30 on Sunday?
Absolutely. RULE #1 - TAKE CARE OF BUSINESS.
They came, they saw, they
purchased, they were happy and so were we.
Ready to blow out of town
(next stop Mud Lake) a guy LC had been trying to nail down in Ammon
finally called him back. Yes........the gun safe was still for sale.
Yes.......I'll take your offer. Can you come pick it up tonight at
5pm?
LC looked at me apologetically. It was fine. RULE #1.
He had
been trying to get in touch with the guy for a while and I knew how much
he wanted a gun safe.
We'd leave Monday first thing. No problem.............
We headed out late afternoon to pick up a very big, very heavy gun
safe. By the time we all loaded that beast into the truck it was a
little after 6.
HEY!! Let's stop at Cabelas on the way home and get
that Invasive Species Sticker!
Sounded like a fine idea until we
arrived at Cabelas, saw that it had closed at six and finally remembered
that it was Sunday. Of course it was closed.
We headed home
Invasive-Species-Sticker-Free, and called our neighbor when we were
close to help us off-load the metal beast and get it into the house and
to its final resting place.............
Monday morning came.
Still busy with
last minute preparations for our camping trip I suggested to LC that he
call the VA to set up an appointment for his annual physical.
He was
overdue, needed med refills. I thought it would be a quick phone call.
He was set up at the Salmon VA but had arranged for his appointment
last year at a medical clinic in Arco. It had been a straightforward
process last year. This year.........not so much.
He made one call,
got put on hold, had to leave a call-back number and then wait for the
return phone call. Salmon gave him another number to call.
Hold, leave
number, wait for return phone call. Repeat the same process two more
times.
After a couple of hours of this nonsense LC eventually hung up
the phone in frustration saying "I don't even know who I'm holding for
right now!!". Eventually he called the Salmon VA back, refused to be
shuffled off to someone else, and got it all sorted out.
RULE #2 - BE
NICE UNTIL ITS TIME NOT TO BE NICE.
By that time it was just past noon,
very hot, and we were both stressed out and very frustrated.
In a
flurry of last minute activity we finally picked up enough speed to
break free from the vortex of Atomic City.
Enough already!!.........
LC was driving the Suburban with my kayak in the back and was pulling
the camper.
I was driving the Tahoe with the dog in the back and was
pulling the boat.
It was a production, but Mud Lake was only 75 minutes
away and we both wanted to be on the water in different ways so it was
all good...............
I was following LC and we were traveling about 65mph
(speed limit was 70). About half way between Atomic City and the
turn-off to Howe a vehicle pulled up behind me, waited for the
straight-away and passed both me and LC before pulling back into our
lane. No problem.
A few minutes later another vehicle pulled up behind
me. A minute later the vehicle pulled out to pass me.
I could see a
vehicle approaching in the oncoming lane, knew that the passer would see
it as well once he got into that lane, and I slowed down the Tahoe to
make more room between me and the camper.
The guy passing me wouldn't
have enough time to pass both me and LC (we were at least two vehicle
lengths apart), so I knew that the the guy would be pulling back into
our lane between us pretty quickly. Only..........he didn't..............
He
pulled out from behind me, I slowed down a little to make more room for
him to pull back in, and then watched in disbelief and he continued
driving in the oncoming lane.
"Oh No - he's going to try and take the
camper as well".
He continued in the oncoming lane, I watched LC tried
to ease his Suburban and camper as far over to the right as he could to
make MORE room for the idiot, looked in the rear view to check that
no-one else was behind me and slowed the Tahoe down pretty quickly
because I realized that this had the potential to get really bad, really
quick.
The guy pulled in behind the camper JUST IN TIME to miss the
oncoming car and missed the back of the camper by what looked like
inches.
At that point I called him every un-Christian-like name I could
call him, and I know a lot of names................
An hour later we made it to the small town of Mud Lake.
Pulling into
the gas station I went in to get worms and ice while LC crossed the road
to go into the little store and pick up that evasive Invasive Species
Sticker. I got the worms and ice. LC didn't get the sticker.
Something about Fish and Game picking up the machine to check it, and
they were supposed to have brought it back but that was two weeks ago
and they haven't brought it back yet, and yada yada yada who cares?
We
made one more stop at one last hardware store and then gave it up.
After stopping at seven different businesses in three different towns
over three different days, that sticker wasn't happening. Not on THIS
trip.
LC asked me what I would do if I got stopped on the water. I
responded that I would tell F&G what we had been through in an
attempt to get a sticker and then tell them exactly where they could put
their sticker (and then of course I'd beg for mercy and use the "my
husband is a retired law enforcement officer" card if I had to).
Enough
already...................
By the time we finally parked the camper it was about
3pm, it was extremely hot, and we all three were extremely overheated,
tired and cranky.
The dirt road leading into Mud Lake campground proper
was horribly rutted out, and the bumps had thrown everything in the
camper into disarray (including knocking down two sets of curtains).
After cleaning up and picking up, we tried to nap in a very hot camper
and did for a short while.
By 5pm Kory was happily playing in the
water and exploring around the campground, and LC and I off-loaded the
boat at the boat ramp, and were sitting drinking bottled water watching
our dog and trying hard to dial back the stress. We felt better. A
little better.
As we sat and talked by the water, watched the dog play,
watched the various large birds, and as I snapped occasional pictures
we began to feel better still. We needed this SO much and after the
various stressors of the past month, were just happy that we had finally
made it.
We were waiting for the heat to subside so that we could take
the boat out.
LC fished briefly from the dock. I would wait until
early the next morning to kayak.
The sky began to cloud over and by
sometime after 6 it was cool enough to head out onto the water to
explore the lake a little. We were both hungry but food could wait
until we got back.................
Kory had been dis-interested in her life
jacket last year but this year it drove her insane for the first 20
minutes that she was wearing it, and we watched in surprise as she
danced around and back flipped in a losing battle to tear the life
jacket off her. She wasn't a happy camper.
Last year she had loved the
boat. This year she hated the boat and the entire experience as we
wandered around small islands, and we watched in surprised as she
alternated between standing at the front of the boat forlornly watching
the water-world slowly go by and burying her head underneath my knees.
The water was beginning to get choppy and the sky was quickly building
clouds. We didn't put it all together until later...............
We were only on the water for an hour or so but it had been a good ride,
and even though Kory wasn't impressed both LC and I had a good time.
But it was time to eat.
A quick meal of canned beans, diced hot dogs,
and soft buns and we decided to go for a long walk together before it
got dark.
As we finished up dishes Kory suddenly dropped her ears,
dropped her head, dropper her tail, and sprinted for the safety of the
inside of the camper. LC and I looked at each other in surprise. What
was THAT all about?
A minute later we heard the first clap of
thunder. That explained Korys' behavior.
She had heard thunder long
before WE had heard it. So OK. A walk was obviously out, since there
was no way our dog would want to walk with thunder floating around. We
decided to go for a drive instead.
As we pulled out of the campground
we decided to head back to the town of Mud Lake and pick up bug spray
since we had been fighting off mosquitoes ever since we arrived.
By the
time we had a full view of the lake we both looked at the sky and
realized that there was a major storm heading our way. Thunder
increased. The sky was beginning to get ominously black. And then the
lightning strikes began. THAT was why our dog didn't want to go out
onto the water - she had sensed that a storm was approaching..............
The
lake was white capping, the sky got blacker, the winds picked up, and
thunder and lightning struck with increasing regularity. We turned
around. Batteries were still in the boat that was still tied to the
boat dock.
All the windows and vents were open in the camper. We
needed to batten down the hatches.
And then it started to pour with
rain.............
When we got back to the camper we left Kory in the vehicle
while we ran to the camper to shut it all down, ran to the picnic table
to grab various items we had left out that needed to be brought inside,
and then pulled the Suburban down to the river to load the batteries and
trolling motor in the back.
The boat would be fine.
Five minutes
after we all retreated to the camper it was over.
We had had thunder,
lightning, high winds, pouring rain in the span of just a few minutes.
It blew over just as quickly as it had arrived...............
Opening windows
and vents again, LC and I pulled open the camp chairs, grabbed the
playing cards and headlamps, set up the folding table and settled down
to play cards.
Thunder clapped again in the distance and our terrified
dog scrambled underneath the bunker of the bed, trying to get as far
back in the camper as she could.
Thunder continued and when we pulled
out the bags from under the bed to check on her we realized that our dog
was OK exactly where she was and didn't plan on coming out anytime
soon.
Eventually she curled up and slept.
And I beat LC in our first
game of cards. Beat him like a drum.............
I also won the first hand of our second game and things looked good.
LC
had beat me three games to one last time we camped in Challis about six
weeks ago and I wanted payback.
The trash talk was flying fast and
free (as it always does when he and I play any kind of games).
As he
was dealing the cards - and out of the blue - LC asked me if we had
turned the coffee pot off at the house.
I had made a fresh pot of
coffee first thing in the morning, we had both drunk one cup each, so
the pot had still been pretty full.
We had originally planned on
leaving early and I had left the coffee pot on, thinking we could both
bring a travel mug for the road with us.
That, of course, hadn't
happened and it had been early afternoon by the time we had headed out.
"Did we turn the coffee pot off?"...........
There was silence for a minute
and I asked "Did you turn it off?" "Not sure. Don't think so". He
asked me "Did YOU turn it off?" "Yes"...............
I was quiet for a minute
while I thought about the morning. I had wandered into the kitchen a
few times over the course of the morning and had actively thought "I
need to remember to turn the coffee pot off before we leave".
Had I
actually TURNED it off? "I'm not sure. I remember thinking that I
needed to turn it off, but I don't remember physically doing it"..................
LC
and I looked at each other wordlessly.
I asked him "What time is it?"
It was 10:20pm.
"Is that spare key outside where we left it?" (I was
thinking that a neighbor could check on the house for us).
LC - "No I
gave it to the realtor".
We looked at each other for a few minutes,
both of us weighing our conversation, until eventually we both spoke at
once.
We needed to go home.
After the chaos of the past few weeks, the
stress we had been under, the speed with which we had finally closed up
the house and peeled out of town, we knew that there was every
possibility that we had forgotten to turn the coffee pot off..................
By
the time we loaded the boat back onto the trailer and we closed up the
camper to ready it for the drive home it was 11pm.
We arrived home
close to 12:30.
Our camping trip over before it began...............
LC felt
terrible because he knows how much I have been chomping at the bit to go
kayaking.
I felt terrible because I knew how much he wanted to take
his fishing boat out. And we both felt terrible because Kory had been
through a long, hot and sometimes traumatic day and now we were dragging
her home in the middle of the night.
But it was what it was, and
sometimes things just don't go the way you had planned.
I once drove
from Tennessee to North Carolina just for the privilege of taco-ing my
front wheel 20 miles into a 60 mile mountain bike race.
I once drove
from Tennessee to Missouri just to blow out my knee three hours into a
36 hour adventure race.
Thankfully - most of the time - things go
according to plan.
But sometimes they don't, and this was one of those
times..............
I am reminded of that old expression "Sometimes you're the
windshield, and sometimes you're the bug".
This time we were the bug.
Next time we'll shoot for the windshield...............
Oh! And the coffee pot? It was off..............
