2 weekends ago we went camping for the first time this year. It was… interesting. We were not the poster family for the Boy Scouts or Parks Canada by any means!

We drove 3 hours to go camping in Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park. We arrived well before our customary camping set-up time (O’Dark:30).  I guess we just don’t know how to set up camp in the early afternoon, though.

As soon as we got to camp, we realized that, tent campers though we are, we were at the campground sans tent.  Yes, WITHOUT our tent… which had been taken out of our little trailer where we keep all of our camping gear when my hubby and his buddies went moose hunting in September last year.  The tent is always in the trailer with all the camping stuff… it’s always kept in there… so there was no thought to even look for it before we headed out camping ourselves. The tent is always in the trailer… except this time.

That was only the beginning of our less-than-stellar camping trip!

Rather than driving 6-hours round trip back home (6 hours + at least another tank of gas + the wear on our already-wearing-thin tires) to get the tent, we decided to drive just 1-hour into Medicine Hat to get another tent.  Not exactly our original plan for our Friday night on the first night of our camping trip…

Our normal tent is more like a barn (4-room, sleeps 12 people; we can park our VW Jetta inside on one half – if we wanted – and still have room for the 5 of us to sleep on the other side).  It was great for tenting in BC, where if you don’t camp in the rain it’s not really camping, and we always needed a place to get inside and get dry.  That kind of tent is not the best for camping in Alberta, one of the windiest places on the planet.  Maybe it was a blessing-in-disguise that we would be needing to get another tent. Maybe our new one wouldn’t lay down on top of us in the wind!

We opted for 2, lower-profile tents (a big one and a little one), that would shed wind a bit better than our at-the-moment-not-shedding-anything-while-sitting-inside-the-shed-at-home barn-sized tent other big tent. While at Wal-Mart the fanciest camping outfitter in Medicine Hat, we  thought we also might have forgotten to pack the cheese and cracker snack packs and the animal crackers… SO, we picked up some more of those.  We were quite confident that we had a ‘clicker’ (fire-starter), firewood (which we had already completely unpacked at camp while looking for the MIA tent), and Aero bars+graham crackers+marshmallows, so at least Smores would still be on the menu.

We ate at Dairy Queen in order to pacify the bored-from-all-this-driving-already kiddos restless natives. Then we headed back out to camp… in the rain… and the gusting winds… that had accelerated over the dinner hour. Oh, joy.

It was surprisingly still quite light and dry (the rain moved through quickly on the howling wind) while we were finally setting up camp, which might explain some of our difficulties.  It’s a strange sensation being able to see what you’re doing while unpacking the camping gear and driving tent stakes, a luxury we are not particularly familiar with, being more accustomed to setting up in the dark. The gawking neighbors in the campsite next to ours at Cypress Hills were well aware that this wasn’t our usual modis operandi. I’m sure it was fairly obvious that we became more organized as the sun went down (either that or it was just harder to see the chaos in the dim dusk twilight).

The 2 new tents went up relatively quickly once we got back to camp.  The problem wasn’t getting them up, it was keeping them down, as the wind continued to pick up.  But, as the sun finally did set, and the temperature started to drop dramatically, we got the ground tarps and the tents staked down relatively well.  Then we could get to the most important business of camping – chasing chipmunks out of camp fire building!

The kiddos all take turns building the fires while we’re camping, under Dad’s watchful eye.  Bud-Bud would be first. He did a great job of building his teepee fire mound in the fire pit.  All was ready. Except that the ‘clicker’ was nowhere to be found.

I had asked Sweetie as we were walking out our gate at home before leaving if we needed to throw in an extra clicker (he’d just gotten a couple of new ones for Father’s Day), and he said he had seen a full one in the gear so we would be fine.  I asked again in Medicine Hat if we needed to grab an extra clicker.  I was assured that there was a clicker in the with the supplies.  That clicker, however, appeared to have possibly rendezvoused with the MIA tent, because it was nowhere to be found.

Almost Always the Boy Scout, hubby was not to be deterred.  He raided the first aid kit for our emergency matches. A fire was soon raging in the fire pit – thankfully BudBud is a good fire builder!  Not long after that, the clicker was found.  Hubby declared, “See, I’m NOT losing my mind!” (which was debatable, but with regards to the clicker we could now confirm that there was a clicker in the gear, just like he had said.)  The clicker was full of fuel, but we could get it to light only 1 out of every 35 tries… apparently it was too tired from playing Hide-and-Seek with us to work properly.  Thank goodness for the matches.

In the search for the clicker, we did discover a whole drawer of my camping kitchen supplies completely ruined with mold and rust… apparently it had gotten wet at moose camp and had not been cleaned up (blame that on a gimpy wife – me – who had a car accident while Sweetie was at moose camp, and on then having to butcher a cow moose without the gimpy wife’s help… apparently clean up of the gear wasn’t on the to-do list…). The missing tent didn’t tick me off, but this kitchen thing kinda ticked me off.  Since the bulk of my utensils were OK, I couldn’t be too upset though.  During our clicker hunt, we also found the cheese and cracker packs AND the animal crackers that we brought from home, to add to the stuff we had just purchased in Medicine Hat. Now we had enough snacks to feed us and the chipmunks the whole campground, so long as eating them didn’t require use of our now-rusted fish-skinner or the fuzzy green large wooden spoons or the not-sure-what-happened-to-them-but-they-are-gross-beyond-repair spatulas.

But wait… it gets better…

MrCutie and I were at this point fighting a losing battle – The Battle of the Sinuses.  Our allergies were already bothering us before we left home (I mean REALLY bothering us) and being out in nature seemed to have amplified our reactions.  We were drowning in our own … unable to keep up with the copious amounts of fluid discharging from our noses and eyes.  He and I were on our 2nd dose of antihistamines, taken as soon as we could according to pharmaceutical instructions, and we were not getting any relief.  Sneezing, blowing noses, wiping eyes, topped off by sore throats and stuffy heads… we were trying hard to make the best of it, but there wasn’t anything good about how we felt. We were miserable.  Campfire smoke and gallons of bug spray were not aiding our cause at all either.

While getting our beds ready for the night, Sweetie plugged our little air compressor into the auxiliary power outlet in the back of the van to blow up Sweetheart’s small air mat.  This required the key to be turned ‘on’ and was a quick job.  However, hubby we forgot to turn the key off… so a bit later (not even sure how long…) Hubby remembered and went to the van to turn off the key. The battery was completely dead… DANG! Thankfully the Campground Hosts there are friends of ours, so when they came around for their evening drive-through, they stopped and jump-started our van for us.  PHEW!  They said it was a first for them in many years of camp hosting.  I’m so glad we can make great camping memories for others as well as for our own family!

On the plus side, we did make it to camp with our homemade hot chocolate mix, camping mugs, and a couple of good books to read. So we heated water on the fire, and enjoyed a hot cup of cocoa while I read a couple of chapters of our book out loud around the campfire.  Except the fire wasn’t quite bright enough, and the electric ignition on our nifty Coleman lantern wasn’t working, at all….requiring a match to light it instead. TRUSTY matches.

(I have to admit that at that point I rolled my eyes and wondered what else could possibly go wrong…My hubby felt REALLY bad for not making sure the tent was put in the trailer, and I didn’t want to make him feel any worse, so I was being careful not to say too much.  As we bumped into more and more things, I was being equally careful not to say too much.  But this was getting ridiculous… seriously…)

I love to read to my kiddos, and we were in the middle of a good story so it was very natural to bring the book with us to read before bed while we were camping.  The story we were reading, Tales of the Kingdom, was in VERY direct contrast to the stories being told around the campfire in the site next to ours.  Their stories had more to do with single 40-year-old men listening in on honeymooners at a hotel, and a tell-tale statement rang across our sites: “I will never swear at a child, but I don’t care if I swear around them.”  YAH, we were reading our own good stuff to drown out the other stuff…. I also allowed the kiddos to listen to one Decoder Ring Theatre podcast on their iPods before going to sleep – a FIRST for camping – just so I could be sure that they wouldn’t be hearing alcohol-enhanced profanities and vulgarities from next door.

We prepared for bed just as the last bits of sunlight were fading, and to our surprise it was 11pm. The wind was howling through the campground, and we were pretty chilly.  We always camp with LOTS of blankets, so we were confident we’d be pretty warm, all of us except for Sweetheart, who only brought shorts and a t-shirt to sleep in. She kept her hoodie on and wore her capris.  I was hoping she’d sleep well because with campfire smoke on her hoodie there was the possibility that she’d have a hard time with her asthma.  She went right to sleep. And the boys only jostled minimally in their little tent before it fell silent over there as well. Yay for small victories (and something going right)!

With the wind blowing, the neighbors cavorting, babies barking and dogs crying (or something!) in the campground, I knew I’d never get to sleep without earplugs. So I plugged in, put my hoodie on, and climbed into my sleeping bag.  Did you know that you can still hear wind through ear plugs?  You can…. no idea why, but you can. Sleep was nearly impossible between my runny nose, the wind and being cold. Yes, all those blankets, a super sleeping bag, and a sweetie to snuggle with and I was still cold. Sweetie wasn’t cold at all… I was wondering at that point if I was getting sick.  It would be perfect for my allergies to turn into something more serious, the way everything else had been going.

MrCutie got up in the middle of the night with an upset stomach.  Sweetie got up with him, and put him in the van to sleep there.  After 2 minutes in the van, MrCutie rushes out and throws up in the middle of camp (thankfully NOT in the van and NOT in the tent).  I hate throw up.  I hate throw up at camp even more… He climbed back in the van and went to sleep, and Sweetie shoveled the upchuck into the dumpster (which was right by our camp – another BONUS, ha!).

Morning, of course, came bright and early, but it looked like it was going to be a better day for most things.  Aside from no sleep, raging allergies and wailing winds, it was a better day.  I was seriously miserable, and MrCutie wasn’t much better.  There was no more throw-up, thank goodness!! We visited Horseshoe Canyon together, Sweetie took the kiddos for a bike ride by the lake, and I stayed in camp to read my book, Jesus, My Father, the CIA and Me. We never got the canoe out on the water because the wind kept the lake choppy.  The kiddos rode numerous laps around the campground loops on their bikes, explored in the woods, and sniffled their way through the rest of our time there.  We got to visit with our friends the Campground Hosts a few more times, and that was a treat.

We stayed pretty low-key, and were entertained (I use the term loosely) by the 5 large and very loud Harley Davidson motorcycles and their riders that came to visit our neighbors on Saturday evening. They left well before curfew – PHEW! Saturday night the wind finally died down a bit, and I passed on the ear plugs.  It was warmer without the wind howling through the tent, and I did sleep a little better.

Sunday morning was spent packing up camp, slowly and sleepily, and then we headed to the beach to hang out for a while before hitting the road to head back home.  The trip ended relatively uneventfully. I was so miserable that I forgot to take any pictures, except the panorama I shared before.  Yup, #momfail!

At one point, on Saturday, with my bloodshot eyes and my bright red runny nose, I asked Sweetie, “What was fun aboud dis again?” Based on the events of the camping trip up to that point, neither one of us could come up with a good answer.

Sweetie is such an optimist though – his Facebook status when we got hom on Sunday night was something like:

“Home from a great camping trip, even though the wind blew and allergies seemed to get us (some worse than others). It was still a much-needed break to be out and enjoy God’s creation.”

Mine was more like:

“Camping trip was… well…interesting! Beautiful place (Cypress Hills), LOTS of wind (so not too many bugs), LOTS of things to set off allergies, and LOTS of ‘oops’ moments along the way. Let’s say, it was memorable! :D”

Believe it or not, we are usually really good campers, well-prepared, and we do usually have a good time while we’re camping. Really!

For future reference, if you want to go camping, this is NOT how to do it, just so you know…in case you wondered…