We got off to the airport on time, despite the usual last-second flurry o’ stuff. About a year ago I started building a “Going on a Trip” checklist on my Palm, building on it each time. It actually helps quite a bit in helping us not forget things.
So we’re a few miles from the parking lot at DIA when Margie looks in the back seat of the van and says, casually, “Um, do you think airport security will have a problem with our having a propane tank in the van?”
Um …
So Margie dove into the back and quickly shuffled thing around, burying the tank under the luggage.
Of course, since we were staying in the Cheap Lot, they didn’t even check. But you gotta know that if she hadn’t noticed it, we would have spent the rest of the evening in a brightly lit room with guys in FBI windbreakers …
Margie still got to be the honorary terrorist of the day, as they did the full search, including shoes, and went through her tote bag, while I juggled toddler, two other carry-on bags, and a car seat. It’s all her fault for forgetting that there were a couple of pairs of sewing scissors in the bag.
One thing they didn’t question was the half-full jug of apple juice in the tote. Which is probably just as well, since it was the remainder of the mead which Margie had made.
This camping trip is an annual event, a “Kleerup Organized Activity” (KOA), which originally grew out of a failed Boy Scout outing (failed in terms of not enough kids showing up); the parents who had already carved out the weekend for the trip decided, what the heck, why not do the camp-out. But since it was not going to be an Official Scouting Event, it meant that entire families — including females — could come. And they could have alcohol along. Etc.
This became, as I said, an annual event, and this was the 19th installment. I’ve been going for a bit over half of those. The attendees number usually somewhere around 60-80, though this year we maxed at just under 50. It involves family, friends, family of friends, and friends of family, from both Southern and Northern California (and, of course, Colorado, too). My parents have been going the past four or five years, too, which has made it all the more fun.
When I started attending, we were going to Kings Canyon National Park, but the park management started phasing out group campsites. Then we were going to somewhere in Sequoia, which was lovely but got kind of cold at night.
We’re currently going to a county park at Lake San Antonio, up above Paso Robles, California. While it gets kind of hot, up into the 80s and 90s during the day, the evenings are nice, we’re on a lake (which allows for skiing and tubing), it’s fairly scenic, the Paso Robles wine country is an easy drive, and …
… well, it’s worth noting that this is all considered “camping” only in the most technical of senses. We really do set up tents and sleep on the ground (though Margie and I inflate up an air mattress and have sheets and blankets). But this particular site has running water. And flush toilets. And showers. And electricity.
And we still make use of the Scout Troop’s equipment (and always return it cleaner than we received it). And this is a very well-financed troop, and thus well-equipped. Nice tents. Good cooking tools and supplies.
And we’re not talking Sloppy Joes and hot dogs on a stick here. We’re talking steak. Lamb. Salad bars. Personalized omelets. Smorgasbord. Heck, we did waffles for breakfast Monday morning.
And, as noted in the “Gone Campin'” picture, a full bar.
So, for about $75 a head, you get all the good food you can eat and drink from a Friday night through a Monday morning. Not a bad deal.
Everyone pitches in for camp setup, food prep, and clean-up. And everyone has a good time.
There’s usually a theme for Saturday night. We’ve gone as far as put together game shows, set up a real hardwood dance floor, stage a Highland Games, etc., all with appropriate costumes. Things have gotten a bit less elaborate in the past few years, but we still maintain the “theme” idea. This year it was “Solstice.”
Which is the very elaborate way of explaining the whole mead thing.
This was the first trip to the airport where Katherine recognized airplanes as something interesting. She ran around a lot from window to window, pointing at the “Murkees! Murkees!”
Though we took off at a little after 9 p.m., there was still a purple twilight above the clouds. As I watched Kitten looking out the window at the top of the fluffy clouds, swooshing through a fairy wonderland, I thought about how lucky she was.
She seemed to think so, too.
We had a bunch of grapes for Katherine to nibble on. She immediately tore the plastic bag, which we replaced with one of the convenient barf bags from the seat back in front of us.
Katherine got to sleep in her own tent. That was both because it would be fun for her and because if she were in the tent with us, nobody would sleep. She learned, after the first night, how to unzip the tent flap. Thus, after being put down to sleep the next couple of nights, she had a tendency to rejoin us.
We also had some late night and early morning visits by wild pigs.
Across the hills was the Camp Roberts California Army National Guard Training Site. Well, they sure were training, as we heard the WHUMP of artillery fire each night by flare-light.
On Saturday we went down to the wine country. Margie’s “Uncle Al” is big into wine, and had been in Paso Robles a month or two earlier for some event. He’d arranged a private tasting for us at a new winery in town. We didn’t realize they hadn’t actually built the winery part yet, and we ended up drinking some very nice Syrah and Zin blends, plus a Zin dessert wine, out on the gent’s back porch.
Last year Margie and I took off a second day for our own personal wine tour. That was fun, but this year we spent Sunday up in camp. More relaxing, and it gave me a chance to go out in the boat with Katherine and my folks. I went tubing, which was properly exhilarating (and exhausting). Katherine sacked out for most of the trip, but she enjoyed watching me being bashed around on the waves. Pictures will follow.
It was a great weekend. A lot of fun. The grandparents loved being able to spend the time with the Kitten (and we loved being able to let her do it).