(My creativity juices seem to have dried up as of late. Don’t worry though, I’m still as sarcastic as ever and hoping to get back at this blog-thing sooner than later. In the meantime, here’s one that’s been sitting in the hopper. A little old at this point, but figured I’d get it out given my recent dry spell. Enjoy!)
The Aftermath
Nothing like the old, ‘dog-ate-my-homework’ excuse. Or the apparently normal ‘my-mom-burned-my-test’ excuse. I say apparently normal, because the teacher was completely unfazed by my email. Perhaps it’s because she recognized the importance of S’mores in the grand scheme of things? That, or she herself was a Girl Scout. Either way, our priorities were in sync. (Mental note: buy the teacher a great end-of-year gift.) But I digress…
Let me rewind back to the days before I had to sheepishly write that email…
Tuesday, April 23rd
Girl Scout Mother-Daughter Camping, 2019. The chaos leading up to the weekend camping trip had me on edge. Over-scheduled and underslept (if that’s a word?), my anxiety grew as the anticipated temperature for the weekend continued to drop. The weather was predicted to be rain, snow, and more snow, and by Tuesday, I know I wasn’t the only one in the group to be thinking that maybe, just maybe, I wanted out… Of course though, I didn’t verbalize it, because that might have cascaded into the entire weekend falling apart for everyone. I wasn’t the only one teetering. But I held strong. Or strong enough, anyway (although there may or may not have been some texting behind the scenes)…
Thursday, April 25th
The thought never occurred to me that the cabins we were staying in wouldn’t have electricity. I mean, I was packing headlamps and flashlights, sure, but I wasn’t thinking I would actually have to use them. I thought the girls would have fun with them telling ghost stories and stuff. I was more worried about staying warm given that “Winter was coming.” No electricity though? See above. I would have been the first one to bail. So I had our organizer reach out to someone who had previously been camping with her daughter: “Did you have electricity when you went camping?” What a loaded question. If the answer was no, you can be sure it would have induced panic. If the answer was yes, then duh, yes. Who goes camping where there is no electricity, ha!? Lucky for me it was the latter. Duh, yes, there is electricity. (PHEW.) Note to self: be sure when planning things like this in the future that before any decisions are made, we know whether or not we’ll have electricity…
Anyway, given the newfound knowledge that we would have electricity, I planned to bring a space heater (because that’s normal on a camp out)…so in my mind, in the worst case scenario, I would be able to at least heat a small radius around the space heater and we could all take turns defrosting. The discovery that we did indeed have electricity gave me an invincible feeling – I could do this camping thing!
The Weekend
The weather did not disappoint (and by disappoint, I mean, the meteorologists actually got it right for once). It was rainy and cold on Friday, it snowed all day on Saturday, and on Sunday? More snow. Just like they predicted. Have meteorologists ever accurately predicted the weather for three days in a row? As a result of the unusually cold weather, the following volley between mother and daughter was heard all weekend:
- “Put on your jacket.”
- “I’m too hot.”
- “Where’s your jacket?”
- “I’m too hot.”
- “Why won’t you wear your jacket?”
- “I’m too hot.”
- (Giving The Look): “If you don’t put on your jacket right now…”
- (Withdrawing in terror): “Fine.”
And incidentally, it wasn’t just our girls. Apparently there is some unwritten pact, that on these Girls-Gone-Wild-Brownies-Edition weekends, the girls become hard of hearing, (a little bit) stubborn, and irrational. Absolutely irrational. Did they not know that it was 30 degrees out!?! T-shirts will not keep you warm!
But I will say though, through all of the uncertainty leading up to the camp out, in the end, it was all worth it. What.a.blast. I’m not sure who had more fun – the moms or the girls. Did we have enough layers of clothing? Nope. Appropriate footwear? Nah. Hats, gloves, mittens? Nada. But did we have snacks? Yup! (A few) Drinks for the moms? Absolutely. And a good sense of humor? There were definitely some good laughs. Check, check, and check.
Highlights of the weekend:
- The cabins had bathrooms, showers, and heat – win-win-win!
- There were no injuries in archery;
- Candle-making was a (phallic?) success;
- Only one person got burned during wood shop – given the lack of sleep by Sunday morning, I’ll consider this a win;
- The girls’ silent dance-party at 1:00 a.m. only woke up a few of the moms;
- However, those who slept through said dance party inevitably woke up just a few hours late to Jenga towers collapsing…(sunrise Jenga, anyone?!?);
- (Sleep was limited);
- Snacks were plentiful!
- VERY limited cell phone service: “I’m sorry, hunny, I can’t hear you. What? Version 2.0 is –ck? Oh –, all o— the cou–? Yu–! Too b–. We –ill con–ct — a f-w days! Go-d –ck! You’re fine. Love you!” TRANSLATION: (Suck it up for a day, I love you.)
- There were no fights between troops…at least not between the girls anyway. The moms though, on the Flying Fish ropes course? Well, let’s just hope our girls didn’t overhear our snarky comments…
- The girls had a blast! (And so did the moms!)
The irony of it all, and so in line with how life always goes, is that the girls – like the moms – seemed to have the most fun just hanging out in the cabins. Even with all of the activities to do, the hundreds of acres to explore, the excitement of a weekend away, it was the time together in the cabins where we had the most laughs. It’s like when you buy your kid a great gift, only to have them love the box more? Kind of comparable, if you ask me. I suppose there could be worse things…
And that’s a wrap!
