Kamp

So this past memorial day weekend was spent camping at Hoomaluhia Botanical Garden. We havnt been camping for a few years. My Blue Tarp that I used to use for ground cover turned into dust; so I meant to buy one that day; but forgot at the moment I remembered that I needed my floppy hat. So I ended up stopping back at the house to get some 6mil plastic sheet that happened to be lying around.

That turned out to be a preview of things to come.

Got there kind of late-ish. We hauled all our firewood. I really mean ALL our firewood. At least 200lbs worth. Or at least thatas what my spine was saying. Okay great, we’re all set to make a really nice campfire. Time to setup the tent. Hmm, tent is looking a little faded and smelling a little funky. Maybe its okay. After fussing about with poles and clips and pegs and stuff, it finally looks like a tent. Looking good, time for a nap; break out the chair and zzzzzz. Drat. Half asleep I detect that all too familiar smell of rain. run to tent, close ‘er up so wet stuff doesnt go through the open door. Okay cool, I’m still dry, and so is my chair.

Taro shows up with just enough daylight to pitch tent, then we start dinner. Apparently I’m the only person on the planet that still knows how to cook rice over a stove in a pot, so I’m tasked with that. While washing the uncooked rice, Ms H comes along with salad duty, and starts beating the crap out of this poor head of lettuce. When asked by a fellow camper what she was doing, she had some cheeky remark that I dont quite remember, but paraphrasing, “I’m taking his little brains out!” (she was removing the core to ease processing of a whole head of lettuce) After getting going on the rice, time to start a fire.

*click* *click* *click*

Damn, the electric start on Fire-on-a-stick failed. Its a good thing someone had a sparker ready for action; because the charcoals had been “marinating” in some old white gas the better part of the afternoon and the fumes were starting to go everywhere! Finally get the torch started, lucky its long, that was one of the best *FWOOOP* ‘s we’ve done in a while. it was big enough to make some kids go, “WHOA, COOL! DO IT AGAIN! DO IT AGAIN!”. I was thinking at the time, “Man I dont want to do *that* again. That was awfully close to my hair. I still need that.”

Now might be a good time to note that 4lbs of meat is NOT enough for 9 adults and 5 kids. A full 5lbs of chicken and 2.5lbs of Pork Loins barely made it.

Woo hoo! Campfire time! This particular fire was pretty good, After it settled down a bit, the kids did marshmellows. After the childrens’ bedtime, it was time for us to enjoy the fire. By feeding it! I had some Special Ingredients that I ‘ve been wanting to dispose for a while, so we did that. After that it was time for the pallets. Taro took some nice pictures of all the campfire activity.

It took around 5 hours to run out of wood to burn. That done, time for sleep. It rained pretty good a few times in between din and campfire. Go in the tent, DAMMIT. my floor sprung a leak. so did the roof. In fact anything with a seam had a leak. Luckily, it all just kind of flowed down the tent body to a puddle near my feet, where it leaked out the leaky floor. It didnt matter, I passed out in a matter of seconds.