July 18,, 2009

Ok, I will preface this by admitting, that no I DO NOT like camping to begin with. So, when I found out our troop had to stay in tents this year at camp I was not really excited. But, I kept telling myself that every time I am not looking forward to something I usually end up enjoying myself. Add that to the fact that I love doing these things with my daughter and I love spending time around the other girl scout adults and I actually had started to look forward to it.

Well.....

The tents that we were supposed to stay in were infested with HUGE wolf spiders and roaches. The trees were so overgrown it was almost impossible to get to the tents. Friday night we slept in our vehicles. I had three kids in my van with me. It was not comfortable, but there was no way I was going to be able to sleep in those tents. We tried sweeping them and spraying them and the roaches and spiders just kept coming. Plus it was pitch black... no light whatsoever.

We managed to move to newer tents on Saturday morning, but this meant we missed two of the activities while we were trying to get re-settled. The girls did enjoy canoeing, making pinatas and swimming (even thought it was COLD). I spent the canoeing time with our leading getting lunch ready. That was kind of a nightmare, but I really don't wanna talk about it.

It got cold last night. I had made sure Michaela brought a jacket with her, but forgot one for myself. I had my blanket wrapped around me at the bonfire, but of course Michaela had not brought her jacket to the bonfire with her. So, she took my blanket.

By the time it was dark Michaela started freaking out about one small spider she saw in our tent. It really was no big deal, but she just freaked. I finally got her settled down and she and I were attempting to go to sleep when two more girls started freaking out over grand daddy long legs. One tent that did not have any critters in it at all earlier in the day turned into a grand daddy long leg disco tech, they just kept coming into that one tent and there was no way to keep them out. Then, another girl started freaking out because she'd never really been out in the woods, away from the city at night and she just could not take the dark. It really just became a nightmare.

The newer tents were actually really clean considering they are outside dwellings, but I think they were still freaked about the night before. Plus the bathrooms by the newer tents had more bugs in them... go figure. After moving girls around to different tents trying to get people to settle down and be calm for about an hour we decided to leave. We started packing up at 10:30 or so last night and left by 11:00.

I will NEVER stay in tents at a girl scout camp again. I could have made it through last night if our girls were not just freaking out, but it was just too much after not having much sleep the night before. But, if our troop does not have a lodge I'm not going.

Anyway, after carrying our things up to two different tents and back to the van and carrying very heavy coolers with food in them around most of the day, I am sore and am just glad it's over.