Shanty Town and the Great Flood, Pt. II

(contd.)

We dads had stayed up pretty late the previous night (not surprisingly, the wives and kids went to bed fairly early), yet I still got up before everyone else and started a fresh pot of coffee for everyone.  Well, rather, I made a pot of coffee, drank half of it myself while reading a book, then made more.

Breakfast time.  We divided our large party up into two groups of four families for planning meals for this camping trip:  the Houghs, DeBoers, Johnsons and Larsons were all together (as our sites were all next to each other), with the Colliers and Griffins paired up with the Butterfields and two other families the Colliers had invited.  Meal planning is essential to make sure that someone has breakfast covered, someone else has paper plates, etc.  It prevents people from having a shit-load of plastic cups, and no garbage bags, or five bottles of mustard and no hot dog buns.

After breakfast, the kids went down to the front office/headquarters/whatever in order to get in line for this tractor ride the campground does every morning and evening.

You can see our crew - including Abby, in teal - towards the back of the trailer.

Aboard the 'ride.'  Alayna looks super enthused.

Back at camp, following a swim, the kids ate a quick lunch.  And, apparently, Abby recreates her birth (my hammock looks eerily like a vagina.)

Bike riding was ridiculously popular this weekend.

Some wives with Yogi.  The husbands opted not to get a picture with him.

Best friends since Second Grade.  Not much has changed.

While the moms took all the kids down to the pool for another swim session, us dads decided to break out Erik's cornhole boards.  BP and I faced off against Morgan and Erik for the first game, and I threw uncharacteristically bad:  generally, I can get three or four bags on the board - maybe even an occasional cornhole - but I wasn't even close this time around.  Who knows why.

Meanwhile, at the pool. . .

Poolside moms.

I guess this is what kids do in the pool nowadays.  Whatever.

Abby and Kris

Back at the Gypsy Tent Village. . .

Spotted these random balloons danglin' from a tree above one of our campsites.  Nothin' creepy about that at all. . .

Courtney and Kris, chattin' it up with. . . I forget this chick's name.

The womenfolk decided they were gonna have a go with the cornhole set, so we guys broke out some cigars and drinks and played the part of dutiful spectators.

Kris vs. Meesook

BP and Ryan

Courtney vs. Danielle

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

Confused Kris

(I should make this my profile pic.)

So after hanging out back at the campsite for most of the morning and afternoon, we decided to take the kids up to the front of the campground, back up to that entertainment complex they have that we visited the day before.  We promised the kids they could check out the arcade, the go karts, and, of course, the zip line.  Here's Jackson and Ella trying it out.

Maddie and Sophie

Elise aaaaand... I forget the other girl's name.  She belongs to Lonnie and Stephanie, though.

Mees and Tegan

Siblings, trying to 'act bored.'

Butterfield and one of his kids

The Dynamic Duo, Abby and Ella.

After all the kids got to try out the zip line (with the lone exception of Alayna, who was adamant about abstaining), we opted for go karts next.

Buying tickets

Stephanie and LJ.  Courtney, Danielle and I hung out on a bridge that spanned the race track in order to take pics.

The Colliers

More Colliers

Larsons

Erik

She's waaaay too excited for this.

Ella

Abby

The Cannonball

BP and Delia

Erik took this to show off my kid's parking job.  You were supposed to park in one of two rows, and she definitely didn't.

Again.  Too damn excited for go karting.

Of course it was a woman driver. . .

Next up: the Arcade

This was a straight-up money pit, but we knew it was going to be before heading into it.  Each of these games printed out tickets, which could then be exchanged for prizes.  But, of course, you needed a ridiculous amount of tickets to get anything in the store, and the prizes themselves were cheap and totally worthless.  Still, kids are stupid, and so of course they bought into this whole con job.

Questing for tickets. . .

BP explains a game

Courtney tries to win her kid some tickets. . .

I didn't play this, but thought it looked pretty badass.  I'm a sucker for all things 'ancient history.'

The Larsons brush up on their b-ballin' skills.

A futile attempt at another ticket-distributing 'game.'

After burning through a king's ransom in arcade tokens, Alayna hit the jackpot on this Price is Right-ish game.

Dads are hilarious.

Courtney, too, won a jackpot.

Abby and Ella try out a simulator of some kind

(They weren't very good at this.)

Waiting for the others to finish cashing in their near-worthless tickets in the arcade store.  Everything the kids walked out with was pure crap - candy, dollar-store toys, bargain bin stuffed animals, etc.

Still waiting for everyone to finish shopping.  It was about twenty minutes until the last kids walked out of the store.

A fantastic outdoor beer, perfect for a summer afternoon camping.

The true sign of raising kids.  These were parked outside the bathrooms, a short walk from our little Shanty Town, and of course belonged to our offspring.

Back in the pool for a quick, afternoon swim.  Abby, here, is clearly not swimming; we revoked that privilege after she got into a fight with her sister and clawed the other's face.  So she got to sit on the side of the pool and watch her friends - and her sister - swim instead.  That's parenting, America.

Ella, totally rubbing it in.

Back at the campsite, a little while later.

Erik grilled up some pork loins for us, which were f***ing amazing.

A couple of moms, helping themselves and not their husbands or children.

Frickin' BP, shoving his face.

Ryan does some dishes

Later that evening, Yours Truly set to work getting some kindling together for the evening's bonfires.

Selfies with Mom.

More selfies with Mom

God only know what they're looking at, here.

Campfires and evening pipes.  Sounds like a solid time, in my book.

 

Butterfield and Ryan

Delia, makin' s'mores

BP and Erik, tracking an approaching system headed our way.  The initial forecast for the day had chance of a thunderstorm in the evening, but for awhile it looked like it was going to veer off to the north of us.  As the night wore on, it definitely looked as if we were directly in the storm's path, and it was a pretty big storm.

We put up everything that was sitting out unprotected - brought the bikes and chairs under the canopies, all expensive items into tents, etc. - just as the storm clouds rolled in.  The rain came down in buckets.

At first it looked like we could just hunker down under the canopies and continue hanging out, but the rain was blowing in at an angle, the wind was ridiculous, and it was so loud we had to scream over the storm just to hear one another.  By this point in time, the kids were all in tents, so at least we didn't have to keep them occupied.

The rain came down so fast and so hard that it created literal rivers that cut across the campsites.  This river went by our tent and then slammed into the Alayna and Maddie's.  While water wasn't seeping in from the floor - the tent miraculously held together despite being in the center of a frickin' pond - there was some sprinkling in from underneath the rain fly (because the rain was blowing in sideways.)  Both girls scrambled to get their possessions into their sleeping bags to protect them.

Ryan to the rescue 

Ryan was our designated rain guy, since he was the only one smart enough to pack a rain jacket with his camping gear.  He checked up on the girls' tents, as well as the other folks' tents, just to make sure we weren't dealing with any flooding anywhere.

And, for nearly a half an hour, we battled the deluge from underneath the safety of our little canopy - regularly pushing up against the underside of the canopy when the water it collected above threatened to bring the entire structure down.  After awhile, it looked like the storm was lightening up, and that we'd make it through unscathed. . . but HOLY SHIT were we ever wrong. . .

- Brian