Camping

On Friday June 29th, we went camping for the weekend.  My friend Jennifer has a camper at a campground off the Mattaponi River about an hour's drive from here.  We rented a one room cabin with an A/C window unit.  There is no way Harlie could handle the heat with no A/C, especially when they were calling for temps over 100 degrees.

I admit that I was stressing about the weekend.  I had not been there before and was a little nervous over what we were going to do with Harlie.  Even though we had the cabin, we couldn't hang out in there all day.  Most of our time was going to be spent outside.  And between worrying about her and having to pack, it was feeling more like work than play.  And we couldn't take Rooney!  It was going to be our first time away from him.  So, I knew that was going to be hard, too.

But, I trudged forward and made myself go because you never know unless you try.

I dropped Rooney off at a friend's house.  She has four pugs and a dalmatian.  He just blended right on in.  I thought I would cry when I left.  I didn't, but he did!  She was awesome and sent me some photos.  I missed him so much!  I mean, just look at his cute little face!

We got to the campground in the evening (maybe around 8pm?), got settled in, and visited with Jennifer and her family.  A little after dark, we took the kids back to the cabin for bedtime.  The cabin has a full-size bed, and twin bunk beds.  And we brought an air mattress for Harlie.

I can't remember now, but Jennifer called us to let us know that a storm was coming.  And she was nervous. The storm hit not long after that conversation.  We could hear the wind and it was a little scary being in that tiny little cabin without being able to see what was going on outside.  A big branch fell on the roof of the cabin and that got us scared.  There was very little protection in that cabin.  So, we moved Murphy down from the top bunk into the bottom bunk with Cooper.  Then Jennifer called again and told us we should get out of there and that everyone was getting in their cars and going to a clearing trying to get away from the trees.  By this time (it all happened very quickly) the wind was very scary and we had lost power.  So, Tom went and got the truck ready and I was going to start to get the kids up.  When he got back to the door he started yelling that we needed to hurry up.  So, I struggled to get Murphy awake and told him to go with Tom to the truck.  Then Tom came back to help me with Harlie and Cooper.  

I got Cooper and Tom got Harlie, then I realized I needed her suction machine and I wanted her hearing aid.  And as I was headed out I also grabbed her emergency bag, too.  I mean what if something crazy happened???

Then I ran and jumped in the truck, with everything in my lap, including Cooper.  I didn't even have the door shut before Tom was backing out of there.  It was pretty scary.  I think Cooper stayed pretty much asleep the whole time - which is VERY unusual.  He is not that heavy of a sleeper.  Harlie woke up and was very confused.  Murphy was definitely scared.  He said that he didn't like seeing us scared.  So, Tom said, "Murphy, we're not scared, we're concerned."

I don't know if driving to the clearing was all that much better.  If a tree fell, it would have still squished us.  We couldn't get far enough away to be out of the way.  But, for some reason, it made us feel better.  So, to lighten the mood, Tom put on some music and I took a picture.

Ahhh, memories.

After about 30-45 minutes, the storm was pretty much gone and so we headed back to the cabin to get some sleep.  Since it was a small, one-room cabin, it was still cool from the A/C that was kickin' earlier.  But, it was dark, which was fine.  We brought flashlights.  Of course we couldn't plug in Harlie's suction machine or pulse ox machine.  Both have batteries, but need to be recharged at some point.  The worst part of not having power at the campground, is that there's no power to run the well water pump, so that meant no water, either.  Ouch.    

The next morning we headed over to Jennifer's camper for breakfast.  Her husband got up super early and drove back home to get his generator, which was awesome.  So, at least the camper had power and A/C inside.  So, throughout the day, we could go inside and cool off.  For the most part, we spent the day at the beach area of the river.  Here are some of my favorite pictures from the weekend:

 

A trick that Tom learned in Turkey back in his Navy days.

Alexa, Kyleigh and Cooper

Love, love, LOVE this one!

Jennifer and I

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Murphy and Austin

We still didn't have power by Saturday night.  So, Jennifer and I took their golf cart over to the cabin to see if it was cool enough to sleep in.  It had been over 100 degrees that day, and it was HOT in there.  We didn't feel comfortable with Harlie being in that heat.  So, Jennifer said we were just going to have to sleep in the camper with them.  The camper sleeps six.  That night, it slept 11!  Jennifer was a real problem solver fitting us all in there.  It was like a puzzle.  And her husband went and got a huge thing of water and put it in the camper well so we could take showers.  We were so grateful for some clean water and A/C!

That night (Saturday) there was another storm expected.  Geez!  We all stayed in the camper that night.  Of course we had to constantly go back and forth from the cabin and the camper to go get our stuff.  It wasn't until it had started to storm again that I realized I forgot to get Harlie's formula.  Ugh!  So I asked Tom if he would run over there and grab some.  And he said, "So, let me get this straight, we're in a storm, in a camper, and you want me to go and get in a golf cart?"  Um, yes?  He waited a bit and then ran over there.

And then we left Sunday afternoon.  The power came on an hour before we left.  A huge thank you to Jennifer and Jeff for having us!  We had a great time!

I'm trying to get caught up on my blogging.  So, hopefully I'll have another post soon.

Thanks!
~Christy