Camp -- Part II

It's the little things in life...food, restrooms, electricity that you take for granted.

Our cabins were kind of set up in almost a semi-circle, with a large open area in the middle. My cabin was very close to the woods. In order to use the restroom (toilets only) you had to walk about a mile. That worked splendidly in the middle of the night with young children with only a dim flashlight. The batteries began to fade from so much usage.

Believe it or not, the restrooms had light. The main downfall of the restrooms (better called the stressrooms) was the massive amount of BUGS! I don't mean a few spiders or something, I mean mosquitos, spiders, and all kinds of bugs--everywhere!! You could NOT sit on the toilet seats as they were COVERED in mosquitos and bugs. So to spell it out, the mosquitos would bite your rear and whatever else they could as you used the restroom. It was like we were somewhere other than civilization. There was a round thing outside the toilet area that you pushed down on the bottom and water would kind of spray out. As you can imagine it was like a swarm of insects as well. No soap...just water. I think that's how we attempted to brush our teeth.

Going to bed at 9 pm, WOW--time ticked slowly by. I couldn't sleep due to the early hour AND, the croaking bullfrogs, swarming mosquitos in my ears, the whining/flying bats in the cabin, and fear of the giant racoons. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. It would get the little campers more afraid.

Oh yes, did I mention that I had two children in my cabin who were on Ritalin. It was quite an experience for me. They were less than stellar in the behavior department.

There were at least 3 decent things about it all...the day we went to a pool, the night we met out in the open area for a little night of snacks, and GOING HOME!

On the bus ride home, we counted my visible mosquito bites. I say visible because you will remember my stories about the bathroom. My cabin had the most. One little girl had one by her eye that made it almost swell shut. I had over 330!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I also remember a little girl getting gum stuck on her skirt on the bus ride and me getting it off with ice.
Upon arrival at HSH (home sweet home), my mom about freaked. She thought I would end up in the hospital with some complication from the mosquitos like malaria or something. Fortunately, that did not happen =) The experience forever changed how I view camping/roughing it/woods etc... NOT FOR ME! It was miserable. I just happened to remember this would be about 15 years ago that we went to Camp Potawatomie in July...and I remember it SO WELL!

The Lodge was a bit better because there were not bugs and there was electricity. We ate our meals there. I remember sitting there singing a song (maybe among a few of us) like this..."here we sit like birds in the wilderness....birds in the wilderness....waiting for our food..."
It was edible, however not incredible as you may have guessed. We didn't starve, but that's about the best way to put it. One night we found a hairpin in the spaghetti--mmm yummy.

I don't remember which night it was, but probab ly the second or third night we were there I was sick. My stomach hurt so bad and I had quite a headache. It was determined that it was from heat exhaustion. (remember it was a balmy 103 every day) There wasn't anything to be done about it, but for me to try to go to sleep--easy right in a cabin that was sweltering and full of bats.

Oh yes, our beds had spiders and spider webs on them upon arrival. Fortunately, my mom had insisted that I take some wipes along. I was able to wipe down my whole bed before putting anything on it. One of my campers wet the bed one night, but we couldn't do anything about that either--no light, no papertowels, nothing.

Each day we bathed ourselves in OFF to no avail. After that experience I was and am convinced that it attracts mosquitos somehow. I haven't ever used it since and haven't ever come close to the amount of bites as that time at camp. I figured out that they made a show out of experiences like this...Survivor and Fear Factor. Considering our young ages...it would definitely qualify!