Camping at Blue Mound State Park with a guest appearance from "Little Mexico."

Last weekend was my last camp outing for the year.

....and I never thought I'd say this, but I'm glad.

Now don't get me wrong.....I still love camping.  I anticipate many more enjoyable trips in my future-- both at my favorite places as well as new ones....and certainly more that involve horses!

...but I'm still glad that it's over for the year. I'm ready for fall weather and I'm ready to settle down for the colder months and enjoy some bonding time with my animals.

I don't want to sound like a whiner, but  the truth of the matter is that camping this summer has been rough, lackluster, and without much enjoyment.

Except for my first outing with the horses at Wildcat SP with Vickie, all of my trips have included rain, extreme humidity, and hot weather. While I DO expect some of that over the course of a camping season, I don't expect to deal with it every day for every trip. In short--this summer has sucked for camping.

I know that come April of 2017, I will once again be raring to get the tent out and get next season started, so there's that.

....and I'm cool with that.

For now, I'll blog a little about this last trip.

For the reasons I mentioned above, I almost didn't go.

At a week away,  the weather looked absolutely perfect. The prediction had been for partly sunny skies, 70 's temps during the day and high 50 ' s at night. Ideal camp weather in my mind.

Once midweek rolled in, the predictions changed to 40% chance of storms Friday evening into Saturday. Ok--not great, but that still left decent temps and a 60% chance that things would remain dry. I could live with that. I felt I was certainly due a nice weekend for camping.

....then just 2 days away, the rain chance was up to 80% with rain & storms likely overnight and through most of the day Saturday.

Shit.

For us, this was to be a simple weekend outing for 2 nights. We would check in on Friday and leave on Sunday.  With short, weekend trips, that really only leaves Saturday to relax and enjoy the day.

...and they were predicting rain all day on Saturday.

We had made reservations at Blue Mound State Park (Non-electric site #44) for this outing. It's not one of my more common picks, but it's still a very nice park that remains on my short list of enjoyable camping destinations.

My co-worker/friend, Wendy was also camping in the site across from us. We had planned to do this earlier in the summer and Wendy has been collecting camping items all summer long in preparation for this weekend. It would be her first camping experience with her family.

.....and yet, I still wanted to bail.

I just wasn't in the mood for another wet, steamy outing (...and I didn't mention it, but they were also now predicting high humidity with slowly climbing temps as well).

I was on the phone to my mom the moment I saw the weather forecast go down the tubes. I told her my enthusiasm for camping had reached an all time low and at that point, I just wanted to spend the weekend at home with my animals.

I thought my mom would be disappointed if I didn't want to go, but she wasn't.  She understood. She said she was fine with staying home and she was fine with going.

I talked to Wendy the next day and she, too, said it was okay with her if I decided not to go. As for her family, they were still going. It was their first trip and they were determined not to let a bit of rain (or a torrential,  downpour with a side of thunder and lightening) spoil their fun.

I wanted to ask her if she could put that enthusiasm into a drink and share some of that with me.....

So, for the next day and a half -- I struggled with the decision on whether or not I really wanted to go. I told myself that I have never backed out of a camp trip before. Just like Wendy, I had always been determined to make the best of it.

....but one more in  the humidity and rain and heat...

Ugh.

I tried driving through nearby Devil's Lake SP, thinking that seeing the other campers and smelling the familiar campfire smells would get me revved up to go.

Nope.

My brain was screaming that it had had enough.

...So bringing us to the night before,  I was still feeling pretty bad about wanting to pull out. I had taken 2 days off to ease the planning and help me further enjoy the trip. I knew I needed to make those days count and not waste them. I also felt like my mom still wanted to go and most of all, I didn't want to ditch Wendy and her family who had agreed to camp next to us.

Finally, on Friday morning, I phoned my mom and told her I was still fighting with my desire to go.

So my mom says "Let's just go."

So I said "Ok." .....at this point I had over thought everything and my mind was numb.

I even agreed to leaving my car behind and just piling me and all my crap into the truck with my mom and Jerseydog (which is something I normally don't do. I like having my car). Sadly, I was already 100% tuned out at that point.

What ensued made for a rather interesting camping trip....

As is customarily the case with both my mother and I, we pulled into the campground far later than we had hoped.

My mom was a bit intimidated by the narrow roads in this campground as they make maneuvering a trailer into place a little more challenging.  We had to turn around and come at our campsite from the opposite direction we drove in so my mom didn't have to back a corkscrew pattern to get set up.

Did I say how much I am enjoying the fact that I went back to tent camping?  No?
....just thought I'd mention that again...

Once we were facing the correct direction, backing in was a snap. I don't think my mom realizes how good she has mastered backing her trailer.  I've seen a few dudes she could put to shame! (...and when I finally get that horse trailer and must tow again --she's hired!!  *Big Grin*)

Rain had been threatening throughout our setup and we got a few sprinkles, but nothing significant.  It was also comfortably cool outside. I happily told myself that if it stayed this way, I could live with it and be content.

Wendy and her family had set up their camp long before us.

I enjoyed looking over at their big tent across the road from our site.

The rest of the evening was uneventful. My mom and I enjoyed some pizza flavored brats on the portable grill (because we hadn't bought firewood yet) and turned in for an early bedtime since we were both tired.

Considering the weather predictions, I slept reasonably well. While I enjoy rip roaring Thunderstorms  in the safety of my apartment,  I don't enjoy them in a tent. As luck would have it, however, it didn't storm. It rained. Hard.

....but no storms.

There is ONE positive thing that I have come away from this camping season with and that is just how much I love my tent. My tent has done fabulously through all the rainy weather this year keeping both myself and my canine tent mate dry as a bone.

Jersey will hang out in my mom's camper when she has to (for a variety of reasons), but she has made it very clear that she prefers being in the tent with me. She likes being MY camp & hike dog. ♡♡♡♡

My tent has been a great investment and I have been very happy with it as this is my 3rd season since re-homing my old camper.

Getting back on track,  Saturday turned out to be a fair day. Everything was very wet, but everyone managed to stay dry and the ongoing rain was very minimal. 

Wendy got her first initiation as a camper when the resident raccoons broke into her coolers overnight and helped themselves to her yummy vittles.

In classic,  Wendy, style -- she was good natured and laughed about it and resigned herself and the family to a trip to the store for more food.

My mom and I made our own trip to the store on Saturday (the nearest Wal-Mart about 22 minutes away). The sneaky raccoons had snatched the bag of Jersey's food off of our picnic table while we were busy setting up. I'd like to say we should know better,  but these were brave little stinkers! 

I also needed to buy underwear.

Yup. Forgot them. Therein lies the consequences of a numb brain burned out by  previous, bad weather.

...and because my mother loves to shop, I had to convince her that we really do have a Wal-Mart in our home town (Ok, not really, but getting my shopaholic, mother out of a store after we have the essentials isn't always easy).

Upon returning to our campsite, we discovered.....

...that we'd acquired neighbors. 

This was just a casual,  faraway snapshot I took that doesn't really tell the whole story.

For the next evening, the site next to us was home to (at least) a dozen, Hispanic campers from the neighboring state.

Their picnic table had so much food and drinks on it, I don't think it was possible to find the table.

Their site also sported a full - size grille, a screen tent, and 2 small to medium sized tents (how they had room to move around,  I don't know).

We weren't spying on them. It was hard not to notice.

They also treated us?

No. Wait.

Subjected us...

to their selections of music favorites.

My mom noted that some of the songs were American but were being sung in Spanish. The only tune I recognized was "Unchained Melody," from the movie GHOST. That song was the only one they played in  English (I guess they couldn't find the Spanish version).

 

During this time Jersey and I took a few invigorating hikes around the campground. Unfortunately,  I assumed the trails would be too wet.

By Saturday night, I was ready to rip my hair out. No peaceful forest noises for me (...and just for the record, I am not bigoted -- I would have been EQUALLY annoyed had they been English songs. They were quite loud).

Camping etiquette usually dictates that music should not be heard beyond your own campsite.

*sigh*

My mother was a much better sport than I, dubbing our neighbors "Little Mexico," and amusing herself  with texting funny, Mexican word jokes back and forth with my sister.

 

In between texts,  she made us a yummy hamburger dinner on the campfire.

....At least it didn't rain all day as predicted. 

After dinner, Wendy's family joined us for S'mores around the campfire. I mentioned to Wendy that with the state of our neighbor's picnic table that she should, at least, have a raccoon free night. They'd all be wearing sombreros on their little masked heads by morning!

I also experimented with adding Starburst candy to marshmallows for roasting. I'd found the idea online and it was quite yummy.

As dusk turned to dark, mom and I decided to try to distract ourselves from the noise next door by playing several hands of UNO.

My mom seriously kicked my butt.

Grrrrrr.

Thankfully, our neighbors respected quiet time and we were able to have a lovely night for sleeping. 

On Sunday, Wendy and her family headed out to The Good Neighbor Festival in Middleton. They had their site reserved for one more night, so didn't need to pack up.

My mom and I relaxed around a yummy sausage and egg breakfast in the morning and gradually broke camp in increments. It was humid (surprised?) and neither of us was in a huge hurry.

Unbeknownst to me, my mom snapped this lovely photo of me carting stuff out of my tent like a busy little ant with a piece of bread.

I will need to monitor her and her camera in the future *winks*.

All in all, it wasn't as bad of a weekend as I thought it was going to be.

On the bright side, I think Wendy is hooked. She's already trying to plan "one more," yet for this season.

Here's a shot of Wendy and hubby, Walter at their site (#43).

As for me, I'm hoping I fanned that fire just a little bit and I'll see Wendy's family on some future campouts.

....but not until next year as I am done for the season!