We went for a camping trip this weekend up in Mongaup Pond in the Catskills, with Martin and his family. We haven’t really done a camping trip since before the pandemic, so it felt really good to be back. We went up on Friday. The whole packing and loading in went smoothly, except that we forgot to pack lawn chairs, so we stopped at a Target on the way. And traffic was really heavy. What’s normally a two-hour trip took almost four hours. Anyway we got there and got set up and the weather was fine. Grilled some meat and drinks some beers and stayed up talking around the fire into the night.
Martin’s kids are at and age where they’re lots of fun to hang out with. They were into pulling a prank where they’d jump out of the woods and attempt to scare you and tell you you’re being mugged. First time they tried it, Alley and Matthew set it up with a story about how the woods were full of robbers and muggers, and we were walking on the sketchy trail. I was confused, but when they sprung the trap it was hilarious. The second time they actually got me, and I hollered out in shock and surprise. They’re also pretty helpful and can build a campfire and keep it going.
In the morning we hung out and had coffee and Martin and I played guitars. Surprisingly, we don’t know that many of the same songs, so mostly we were showing each other different tunes. Today I put more time and focus into my guitar practice than I usually do. In the afternoon we went down to the pond and the kids swam, and later went for some walks or maybe light hikes. We felt a drop of rain in the afternoon and so set up the shelter just in case.
In the evening, when were just about the start making supper, the skies turned dark and ominous, the thunder began to rumble. Soon it began to rain. Right at the start, I made a good fire, put on alot of wood, and Jeannie put tinfoil on the grate to keep it dry. It poured for a good hour, and we sat under the shelter and played an epic game of Fluxx. The rain finally subsided, and we started thinking about cooking again, and that it would be getting dark soon. But the respite didn’t last and soon it was pouring once more. We had heard from the park rangers it was going to continue rain much of the night. Kathleen and Martin decided it would be better to break camp, and Jeannie agreed. We did our best to stay dry as we packed down, but finally we had to take down the tent and the shelter, and it became futile. Ah well, at least the car was fairly organized with the wet stuff all being in one place. And we could run the heat together with the air conditioning on the drive home to dry out.
Amazingly, the fire was still burning strong as we finally pulled out of the campsite. It was probably the worst rains storm I can remember on a camping trip, which was a bit funny, because before we left the forecast was for a thirty percent chance of scattered thundershowers. When we got out of the park and had cel phone service, we learned there was a tornado warning for the sight that night, so it’s just as well we didn’t try and ride it out. It rained most of the way home too. We got home Saturday night and Michelle was surprised to see us and that we threw in the towel. “I wasn’t even aware it was an option,” she said.
We got what we wanted out of the trip. It was a great time despite the rain. It would have been nice if it lasted longer, but we would’ve just gotten up Sunday morning and packed in the rain then. Sunday we put all the wet stuff out in the driveway, the shelter, the tent and the tarps. Also we didn’t cook alot of the food we brought so we had steak yesterday for dinner and we’ll have burgers tomorrow.