The Outing

Kelle and I really love to go camping. We have a regular annual campout with her sister's Sherrie and Darlene. Sherrie and Kelle (and a couple of their friends) make all of the arrangements and schedules and stuff. It makes it really easy for me, I don't have to plan diddly-squat. All campouts begin with a list. A very long list. A huge list, as a matter of fact. We always, always, always have this list. It is our general trip list. I say that it is long, but it is really only two pages with three columns. Actually, that is kind of long but we don't always take everything on it. It is just to make sure that we don't forget anything ... like a leash for each of the dogs.

Everyone goes on all of the campouts, that would be two dogs two kids and two bigger kids.

Buckhorn 2001

Buckhorn 2001: What a fun trip, all weekend. We went swimming, we went campfiring, I got to play guitar a little. It was fun. We like to have some strange things to eat when we go camping, like chicken and dumplings ... we didn't do that this time, it was mostly real camping food, like breakfast burritos (that is always interesting). We were thinking about doing fondue this year but it was scrubbed ... very messy thing to have on a campout.

The campout lasted a whole workweek. We all convoy to the site that way no one gets lost. I know the area up there pretty well now, and you'll find out in a little bit ... once we get there, we set up our individual families on individual but adjacent sites along the coastline at the park ... we really like sites 10, 11 and 12 because they are on a peninsula with a really disgusting swamp between us and anyone else. The sites are south of the swamp so we never smell it, that's pretty cool.

The deerflies were awful this year, as were the mosquitos. The ticks were bad, too. We spoke to a lot of people and they all said that the ticks started hitting about a month early this year. The mosquitos were so bad (even two weeks before we got there), that the locals said that they would open their front doors and go outside and get about 10 feet before the mosquitos would be unbearable ... that's a lot of mosquitos.

We did all of the usual things that a large group does at a campout ... campfires every night looking for satellites and shooting stars (lots of the latter). It was a really hot campout though with near record temperatures. Of course, and this happens every year, we get one really serious storm rip through our site, Kelle and I were prepared this time, though. We had garbage bags for everything. Every single item had a place. Our stuff was pretty much dry except where things touched the side of the tent. These things were pretty much just cloths and the edge of the sleeping bags. Not too bad, all in all.

On the final Saturday that we were there, one of the inner tubes drifted away. It float away about a mile, I swam/walked after it (there are a lot of parts where it really isn't very deep and you can pretty much wade out half-way). Tyler started to follow me and I kept telling her to go back to camp. Finally, she did but she apparently decided that the best place for her to get out of the water was at the swamp that divides our sites from the rest of the park. Kelle said that she was really stinky.

Now, the next day was Sunday, departure day. We had no idea that that night was venetian night ... complete with fireworks. Kelle took Tyler to the water to rinse her off. Tyler got all cleaned and then Kelle let her go (that is NEVER going to happen again). Then she got Hamlet and did the same to him. Keep in mind, the dogs were not on the leash the entire week and had been really good about not straying very far from camp. That was when the fireworks went off. Tyler was totally gone.

Kelle and I started looking for her from 9:00pm (when we noticed that she was missing) until 2:30am. Not even a bark or a howl or anything. She was gone.

The next day, I packed up the entire site while Kelle looked for Tyler. The only problem was, she had the car, all I could do was get everything into a nice, neat, orderly pile. We looked for Tyler until about 8:00pm that night, then we had to go back to Chicago ... a four hour drive away.

The next weekend, I went up to Buckhorn State Park by myself. Later that night, Kelle's sister Sherrie would be coming up. I drove all over the place looking for her. I found out that someone had spotted her the day before, as a matter of fact, she had shown up every day during the week right outside the Buckhorn Cafe. I went to the Cafe and asked if I could sleep in my car in their parking lot, then set up to wait for her.

Nothing.

Sherrie and I looked all weekend, we must have traveled 100 miles between us looking for Tyler. We ended up going home empty-handed.

The following week, Sherrie said that she wanted to go again. I was unable to go, but she went with another friend of ours who frequents our campouts, They were going to go up and look for Tyler along the coast-line in a rented canoe. They drove the four-hour trip up there and had just gotten off of the interstate when I answered the phone and someone on the other side said that they had our dog. They said that they were from Naperville. Tyler had travelled the entire length of Buckhorn State Park and ended up at the summer home of someone from Naperville ... which happens to be about five miles from my house. Kelle's sister hadn't been at Buckhorn for more than ten minutes and she had custody of Tyler.

Tyler was covered with ticks (isn't that a disgusting link). I hate ticks. She had something like, seventeen of them.

She got home two weeks to the hour of her departure. She bolt around 9:00pm Saturday night before we left, and came in the door just before 10:00pm Saturday night, two weeks later.

What a story.

Jellystone Park 2002

Jellystone? What can I say? We had a lot of fun at this years Church campout. This year, however, instead of Kelle being sick, it was "Tank". He had a fever of 102.5. That's pretty high. It turns out that he had an ear infection.

Here are the highlights. Katie and Matthew both got extremely dirty. I guess that is the thrill of roughing it.

We had only one chance to have a camp fire this year and we went to it with extreme gusto. Katie absolutely loved the marshmallows (I'm the marshmallow toasting king). We also did sparklers, Matthew didn't like that so much but Katie thought it was cool.

This particular campout only lasted three days, and it was very hot (92° F). We went swimming in both a pool (Kelle got burned and Katie got some pretty good tan lines) and a lake. Matthew just sat at the beach and kept digging holes in the sand.

Kelle and I pitched a new screened canopy this year ... we are going to bring it every year. It was fantastic. We actually had our camp set up in just about record time. Of course, like I said before, it was only three days and two nights of camping.

Because of Matthew's fever, we didn't really get much sleep (he went to the doctor when we got back). He didn't really act sick until we were leaving. He just had a runny nose and he was a tad cranky.

Everyone slept on the way home (except me). We did our ritual stop at Cracker Barrel which is, incidentally, about 15 minutes from our house. Tradition is tradition.

That is the Jellystone Park 2002 story.

Buckhorn 2002

This years Buckhorn Campout was a bit on the short side. We got there on Friday the 19^th and got back on the 21^st. Usually, it is about five days long. The reason for this is because the site is so far away from the parking lot. You have to hike everything in about a quarter mile. So if you are going to lug all of this stuff in, your not going to want to lug it out in 36 hours. Ya know? Anyway, Tyler stayed with us this entire trip this time. Good thing, because with Kelle and I working, neither one of us would be able to spare the time to go up and hunt for her.

Didn't find so many ticks this year but they were there. There were four ticks found on this outing. A whole bunch of deerflies and biting flies (I don't know if they are the same thing or not) and hardly any mosquitos.

We didn't have a fire the first night because we forgot to pick up firewood at the ranger station (oh well), but the second night we did. The wood didn't get too wet during the downpour (you know that it has to rain on every campout) so that was good. I didn't get the chance to make marshmallows, though Darlene (Kelle's sister) did.

It was really hot this year, the first and only full day of camping was about 95° F which makes for some uncomfortably hot weather. We all went out to the water and pretty much stayed there.

On Sunday, Kelle and Sherrie (the other sister) went on a morning safari around the park. They saw some deer and little else (it was pretty hot, I'm sure that the animals would have wanted to stay under the trees).

The campout was mostly uneventful (which is a good thing considering our track record for campouts). We all had a good time and there are some pictures, as you can see.