Pickles & Dimes

This year’s camping trip was affected slightly by the weather – twice – as we waited to drive to Jason’s parents’ house on Friday until after we made sure the storms weren’t going to shatter our windows at home. (Every time thunder rumbled, our basement windows rattled ominously. We also got two inches of rain in 90 minutes.)

Then on Saturday night, another nasty storm blew through, sending us sheets of rain propelled by gusty winds, tornado warnings and angry lightning, so half of us took refuge in the basement while the rest of us decided not to get drenched in the pouring rain and stayed in the garage. We sat there huddled with our friends, their two kids and two dogs, and right after the radio announced, “[Town we were in] is in the bullseye of this storm,” and we started to get a little scared, Jason’s dad threw open the garage door and bellowed, “What are you guys doing?” We all jumped a mile and sheepishly ran for the safety of the basement. Seriously, the only way that moment would’ve been scarier was if he had been wearing a hockey mask and brandishing a smoking chainsaw. So we all sat in the basement, shivering wetly: eight adults, four kids and four wet dogs that smelled like, well, wet dog. After the robotic weather radio man finally gave us the all-clear, we shuffled outside to our campers.

And then the power went out.

And that is how we ended up going to bed before 10 pm in our damp camper listening to our popup shake every time the ground rumbled from thunder and counting “One Mississippi, two Mississippi…” every time lightning flashed.

Shorty slept through it all, obviously.

But besides the brief bad weather, the weekend was awesome. Lots of great food and games, and the kids had a blast on the bounce house, inflatable water slide and kiddie pool.

The adults played more Minute to Win It games.

Try to put the hat on your head. While it’s attached to a fishing pole. And you’re blindfolded.

Use a straw to suck up an M&M…

And transfer it across the way to deposit onto another straw.

Blow up a balloon and use the air to blow plastic cups off a table. (This one was my favorite. I skipped doing it last time because I figured “Me + Asthma = Nothing Good Can Come From This,” but it was easy.)

Stick a pedometer on your head and shake your head to see how many “steps” you get in 60 seconds. (This one hurts your neck SO BAD.)

Jason & Shorty were tuckered out. It was maybe 85 degrees, even though it was cloudy, but the humidity was INSANE.

Shorty was great. As spoiled at it may be, having a separate camping chair for him means he sits in it instead of getting wound up around other chairs or picnic tables. Jason & I even got to leave his sight to eat dinner. I went over to check on him and found him in doggie heaven, sitting contentedly in his camping chair while one of the men he used to habitually bark at was scratching him behind his ears. He did SO GOOD at not barking at people. SO GOOD. It might sound stupid, but we were so proud of him for being a good boy.

We kept Shorty on his cable tie-out because even though he gets along with all the other dogs that were there, he also likes to bolt for the road (and not listen when we yell for him to come back, choosing instead to bolt at high speed in the opposite direction). We did finally let him off-leash to play with the other dogs when they were running around the yard, and he immediately took off full-bore for the fastest dog, trying to herd her and play-growling the whole time, which is hilarious because his “growling” sounds exactly like trying to start a car with a dying battery: RowrRowrRowr. Then he got overexcited and started sprinting around at 100 mph and decided to take a flying leap onto his camping chair, which obviously wasn’t bolted to the ground, so he hit it hard, sent it flying and then did a nifty barrel roll while we laughed our asses off. He’s the best dog ever.

Last weekend, we had perfect weather. In April. Totally unheard of in Minnesota, especially since two years ago at this time, we had a foot of snow. This year, the snow’s been gone for almost a month and it’s been in the 70s. So we took advantage and did two of our favorite outside activities.

We broke in our new camper and went camping with Jason’s folks and their dog, Tobie:

Shorty refused to believe he wasn’t human. Not sure why I gotta be on the ground, like a dog.

The weather was fantastic. We spent our days doing everything I love: making campfires, hiking, eating, napping and playing cards. Ahhhh. No better way to spend the day.

OK, this not ground, which is better, I guess. (Yep, the dog has his own camping chair because he is spoiled.)

Hey, how comes you guys get to be in there?!? I wanna be in there, too. (Oh, he was, plenty of times, napping on the bed while we played cards with Jason’s parents. And at night, he s-l-o-w-l-y manuevered himself inside my sleeping bag, which at first I objected to, until I realized he was basically a furry furnace and it was only 36 degrees out. Then my attitude was: welcome, heater puppy! We also had a portable heater that kept us nice and toasty; I slept only in a long-sleeved t-shirt and shorts. Nothing like roughin’ it!)

We also went to the first official game at Target Field. The game didn’t start until 3 p.m., but we got there at 11 a.m. That’s how we roll.

I may have had a slight obsession with Scott Erickson in the early 90s. Speaking of which, I wonder where all his baseball cards that I non-obsessively collected went to?

It was pretty awesome when the jets flew over and the fireworks went off. There were people on top of the downtown office buildings trying to catch a glimpse of the action, and two news choppers circling the area all day.

Best Buy has a booth in Section 219 where you can get your picture taken for free. The couple in front of us has prime Christmas Card Material, because right as the automatic timer counted down to zero and snapped their picture, two oblivious guys walked right into the frame. Ha.

Jason will sometimes hassle me for not updating this site as often as I used to, and I usually respond with gritted teeth and a steely, “I worked all day without a break on a 1,000-page RFP (true story), and my “lunch” was spent on the phone being transferred five times by barely-English-speaking people who work for our mortgage company (also a true story). I do not have the time.” And then he’ll tell me to quit being a whiner.

And then I’ll want to punch him in the ear.

ANYway, I just haven’t really felt like updating because I’m busy and nothing exciting has happened. It’s the same old-same old, only now I’m so stressed out/exhausted I fall asleep on the couch by 8:30 pm instead of 9:00.

But then, this happened:

Jason’s parents bought us a popup camper!

How awesome is that?

They bought themselves a used popup camper last summer. We borrowed it once last month and it was great. We told them someday we would love to get a popup camper like theirs for ourselves, after Jason gets a new job and we can afford it, something old and cheap but in decent shape, etc., etc.

So they’ve been keeping their eyes open for a popup for us and since they live in a small town where things cost 1/3 the price of things in the Twin Cities, they found a great deal. And then they presented it to us with a giant bow on it and said, “Here’s your birthday and Christmas present for the next few years.”

We couldn’t believe it. Becky, Jason’s mom, said, “We want to enjoy seeing you enjoy things rather than giving you money after we’re dead.”

It’s in fantastic shape, used maybe a dozen times in the past 11 years. It has a queen-sized bed on one side, a fridge and a microwave. A microwave! We are going to LOVE camping in it. Hopefully none of our friends have any weekend summer plans for us next year, because we are going to be unavailable.

To say we are excited and overwhelmed and filled with gratitude and hope and happiness at a time where nothing seems to be going our way would be an understatement.

Thank you so much, Bobby and Becky. You’re the best. We love you.

We took our last camping trip for the year to St. Croix Falls, the same campground where Jason proposed to me three years ago, and where we’ve been forced to leave early twice, once due to a tornado and once because we were tired of being rained on in our leaky tent.

(more…)