Camping

Recently, Kelly, Jonathan and Rebecca went camping with several other mothers and kids. While I originally wished I could have gone with them, it's probably better that I didn't. After all, there were no adult males in the bunch.


I was, however, reminded of the last time I went camping. About 15 years ago, seven of us went to Red River Gorge to spend the weekend camping, hiking, checking out caves and burning up a variety of red meats on the camp fire. The group consisted of a married couple with their two pre-teen sons, a single guy I haven't seen since, a female co-worker who I believe wanted me to be the father of her children and myself. The married couple had their tent, the single guy had his and the other four of us shared a tent. Originally, when we set up the tents, my stuff was on one side of the tent, the boys were in the middle and the female co-worker was on the other side. When we called it a night, her stuff magically had moved itself next to mine.


Did I mention that this trip occurred in January. To say it was a tad cold would be an understatement. The first night, the temperature dropped down to 15 below zero. It was so cold that when the moisture from our breath contacted the inside of the tent, it immediately froze. If anyone happened to bump up against the side of the tent, we would have an indoor snow storm. Unfortunately, with four of us crowded into the tent, two of us were in constant contact with the sides so it snowed all night.


And the snow wasn't only inside the tent. Outside, while we were attempting to sleep, 2 or 3 inch's accumulated on the ground. When we all came out the next morning, we made some breakfast and proceeded with our plans for the day. While it continued to snow a little throughout the day, it did warm up enough that the low temperature that night was 5 below.


On our last morning, we gathered up all of our stuff, cleaned up our mess and hiked back to the rear wheel drive Ford Windstar that brought us there. When we got out of the woods and into the clearing (the parking lot) was when we realised that we had severely miss guessed the amount of snowfall for the weekend. While the snow on the ground under the canopy of the trees was only 5-7 inch's, it was a whole lot deeper than that in the parking lot. It was deep enough that we couldn't see the front bumper of the van. But, we climbed in anyway and headed out of the park.


Even though the vehicle we were riding in was not really ideal for driving in the snow, we only had one problem. As we drove along the unplowed roads, the wedge shape of the front of the van caused snow to quickly pile up on the windshield. We had to stop 3 or 4 times just to clear off the windshield. Once we got back to the plowed main roads, it was pretty much smooth sailing. Or, at least until we got to Georgetown, Ky. Unfortunately, all roads headed north out of Georgetown had been declared impassable and were closed (I-75 remained closed for at least a week). Fortunately, we were able to find a motel with an available room where we spent the night (and all took much needed showers). But boy did we all get an ear full.


As we had no radio or any other means of contact while we were in the gorge, we had no idea of the magnitude of the storm we were camping out in. However, our friends and family's at home all knew and were worried sick about us and had no reservations when it came to telling us about it. We were just oblivious (and cold).


We were able to find an open road the next day and obviously made it home safely. But, the next time I go camping, I think I might take a radio along just in case.