Father-Son Camping

On Sunday, Will and Nick took off to spend a few days at a little campground less than 40 miles away. Since it was so close, I drove along behind to check it out. Sadly, I couldn't stay because I had go to work this week. While there, we took a walk around and discovered some fun things for Nick to do. Here you see him experiencing a painful miscalculation of motion, after which he cautioned us not to ever expect any grandchildren from him.

(Sorry Nick, I hope you don't read this any time soon. Just remember, if you don't clean your room, I have ways to make you pay!)

For the first time in years, on Saturday I made a full batch of monster cookies for camping with a group later this week. A full batch includes a dozen eggs, two pounds of brown sugar, three pounds of peanut butter, 18 cups of oatmeal, a bag of chocolate chips, a pound of M&Ms, etc. My mixer isn’t big enough to do it, so it involves a good bit of manual labor. I baked a couple dozen and then realized they tasted funny. When you put this much time and ingredients into something, it better be good, really good. Nobody wants to be stuck with hundreds of cookies that look wonderful but taste funny. I looked at the recipe again and realized I had put 8 tablespoons of baking soda instead of 8 teaspoons. Unbelievable. So on Sunday afternoon I said to Will, "Did I tell you I figured out why the cookies taste funny?" He replied that I’ve asked him that question about every two hours since last night, including saying it in my sleep, and furthermore, he didn’t think they tasted funny. I decided it was definitely time for him to go camping because I may possibly repeat myself, but I certainly don’t talk in my sleep. Eric also said he didn’t think they taste funny. I guess I am blessed that after all these years of eating my cooking, their palates are apparently not very discerning. While at the campground, a couple of dogs ran away from a little girl who was trying to walk them. They came straight for the cookies that were on a little table, apparently thinking they smelled great, but Nick, who thinks they taste a little funny but likes them anyway, quickly rescued them, running them to the safety of the trailer. (The cookies, not the dogs.)

Speaking of dogs, I'm not very fond of them. It's one of my biggest character deficiencies. Maybe I'll analyze that in depth here one day (is it genetic or environment?), but anyway, on Sunday people Will works with were camping up there, letting their dogs run around. They came bounding up to me (the dogs, not the people), two or three, maybe a dozen of them, ready to attack as they always are, but I ignored them. Will mentioned later that I did well with the dogs. I said, "I made up my mind to just ignore them. " Will gave me a look and laughed in disbelief. "No, you did not act like you adore them!" It can be so fun when the hearing starts to go!

Will had just been to a meeting with ham radio people, and someone loaned him a "ham stick" antenna to try out. He explained to me all about how it works, something about a fiberglass core and wires. I understand perfectly. I couldn’t believe he would replace his dipole antenna with such a thing. He always has such fun slinging wires through high branches until he gets it just right. Not to worry, he soon got out his fishing pole to cast his line over some high branches. You can never have too much antenna. Here they are, with Nick on the other end. I really have no idea how he does it or what he’s really doing, but using the fishing pole is so much safer than last summer when he was throwing a hammer with string attached over high branches. The best thing is, when I see him again, he’ll be able to tell me what the weather has been like everywhere from South America to Canada, not from a news source, but from real people who live there and get on their radio every day to share with the rest of the world!

Will is holding a fishing pole and Nick is holding blue rope that is very high in the trees between them. Fascinating. It was time for me to go.

So here they are. They have plenty of food and hot drinks, Will has his ham radio, and Nick has a pocket knife. They will be perfectly happy. Eric is working each evening. All alone, I can get lots of scrapbooking done, so I too will be perfectly happy!