camping with the family

Recently we devised a plan to go camping with some friends. We had not camped in a while, we love camping, and were excited to share this with our son and new friends. All was in order - we had widdled through a few locations, and had decided to head south, beach bound. Lists were made, magic cookies were bought, packs were packed, all rocketing toward escape...but it seemed this plan was born under a bad sign.

Bad sign 1: Our super awesome friend Treva got sick days before our trip, and it was she and her awesome family we were heading out with. So bummed, as this was our first camping trip together, and fun was pretty much a sure thing. Andrea and I decided to move forward with the plan, as always excited to spend time together with our boy. The wind was slightly out of our sails not having our friends coming with us, but still stoked. We had an awesome road trip down towards Playa Tenacatita, a mellow joint of a beach we had camped at before, but at the last minute, went 15km farther to Boca de la Iguana, and their cool little camping park. We got an awesome spot facing the ocean, spent a few fun hours setting up camp. Moments after our first margaritas were downed, the wind picked up.

Bad sign 2: The wind really picked up - and from there within minutes there was rain and sandstorm chaos all around. We barely had time to transition from laughing out-loud at the weather, to running into the van fearing our baby would blow away! Too nutty. In short time, our camp was soaked, our sweet firewood dripping through, and our plans of sitting around a fire, playing games and enjoying the night were dashed. Andrea's most valiant act of heading int the rain to get us some basics left her "a wet rat" - her words. The rains gave up for long enough to survey the damage, and move toward the tent, and the it rained...all night. The baby, never in this environment, did the best he could. My boy is a fucking trooper! I love that kid. But, we all didn't sleep too awesome that night. The next day we got up to a soaked camp, gray skies, and low hopes for hanging the beach all day. We went to a local town Manzanilla for breakfast, and the rains came again. This was the sign of things to come, so we headed back to the camp, and packed up our wet dog of a camp. Sad and slow, starting our drinking at 10:30am if I remember correctly - which i do. We hit the road at 11:40am, and the first song on our road trip return soundtrack was "...and it stoned me" by Van Morrison. It set the tone, said the right things, and for me, was the groove of the day, and it stoned me all the way home.

I Love camping, can't wait to go again.