kismet art: Shortest Camping Trip, Ever

Camping is one of our favorite summer rituals. The fresh air. The yummy treats. The time spent together "unplugged" from the telephone, tv, computer. The games. The laughing. And the stars, all those brilliant stars you can't see in the city.

So last Friday Dave took the day off, we packed up the van and headed off to one of our favorite campgrounds- Sand Prairie on the Middle Fork of the Willamette river, a sweet little spot with a great slow bend in the river for pitching rocks. We pulled into what is usually a fully packed area, surprised by the quiet and that is when the bad omens started.

Bad omen #1: no camp hosts, no usable toilets, no running water. no thanks.

So we went up the road 20 miles or so until we found a small campground with about 8 spots and running water.

Bad omen #2: only 2 other campsites were taken. Should have taken this as a sign.

But we soldiered on, setting up camp, putting up the tent, getting ready for dinner. Laughing. Snapping photos. Drinking lots of water. Running after Emma who decided the woods were her personal "play park". Bad omen #3: it was about 95 degrees out. And we could hear a lot of buzzing.

But Emma and Ben got into the box of games and art supplies and pulled out my childhood dominoes and played for around an hour.Bad omen #4: 5 minutes after we paid for 2 nights of camping we all had at least 2 mosquito bites. So I pulled out the Cutter and sprayed everyone down.

As the night wore on the mosquitoes got worse. I retreated to the tent with Emma, trying in vain to get her to sleep while Dave and Ben read in the van until they got too hot. Then they sat around the campsite, Ben rolled up his pant legs because of the heat. Unfortunately for him the mosquitoes found him irresistible and ate him alive.

We all fell asleep well into the night watching shooting stars and listening to the calls of the bats flying right over our tent and picking off mosquitoes for their dinner. Lovely.

By morning we had all had it. Ben exclaimed "I don't really want another night here in mosquito mansion."

We did have time for a quick cup of cocoa and a bowl of cereal before we broke down our campsite. Seriously, I want to go home... The Cutter just didn't cut it...must go for the all DEET formula next time. And the aftermath of so many mosquito bites: The weekend was not a total loss. We came home, got cleaned up, and sent Dave off to the movies. We ordered a pizza and watched "Clutch Powers" a new Lego movie. We slept in our own beds. We went swimming. We played. We laughed. We had donuts for breakfast. We kept telling stories about our less than 24-hour camping adventure.