We’re home safely from our camping trip. No one lost any fingers or toes. No one was mauled by animals that look furry and cute from a distance but aren’t so great up close. That’s not to say, however, that there weren’t some strange/funny/scary happenings going on at our campsite.
Let me just warn you that 4 bikes require a huge amount of space in the back of a pickup truck. A bike rack might save you from looking like the Clampett family did when they packed up and moved to Beverly - Hills that is. We didn’t have a bike rack however so when the kids and I headed out for the lake on Thursday we ended up driving both Steve’s pickup truck and the Neon - both of which were loaded to the gills with “essentials”. The only thing missing was granny sitting in her rocker at the top of our pile of stuff.
Stockton Lake is gorgeous. I wish I’d been able to drive and take pictures at the same time. There is a mile-long bridge that takes you over Stockton Lake and into the park - the view is breathtaking. We got to our campsite with plenty of daylight- just as I’d hoped. The kids and I had practiced setting up the sleeping tent and screen tent at home but I admit I was a little nervous about whether or not we’d be able to get everything set up properly without Steve to help. Everything went smoothly though. We got camp set up fairly quickly, successfully started a fire and were able to cook wienies over the fire for dinner. Later we made the required s’mores and played cards well into the night.
Friday morning Violet and I woke up early to heed nature’s call. On our way out of camp, I noticed a bread wrapper on the ground and thought to myself “Great - some animal got into the trash last night.” I had put the day’s trash in the back of the truck the night before. Violet and I continued on down to the bathrooms. They were being cleaned so while we waited, we read a bunch of notices on the camp message board. One of the notices was a raccoon warning. Apparently raccoons are plentiful in Missouri State parks. They are also fairly bold and resourceful. According to the notice, there isn’t a container or cooler the raccoons can’t open. They want your food, they want it bad and you must either secure your coolers and any containers with food, or put them in your car at night.
With a feeling of dread, Violet and I headed back to our campsite. We haven’t tent camped in years and the really great screen tent had lulled me into a false sense of urban camping rather than wilderness camping. I never even considered wildlife when I set up our camp kitchen.
Sure enough, when we got back to camp we found our kitchen had been ransacked by the furry little bastards. They had gotten into our dry food storage container and had a snack of Pringles and Chips Ahoy cookies. There were telltale chocolate feet print all over the picnic table. Further investigation showed that there must have been an entire gang of raccoons carrying shopping bags because they also took us for 2 loaves of bread, a package of hamburger buns, a partial package of hot dog buns, 2 bags of marshmallows, 3 bananas, and 2 apples. They taste tested the onions, baby wipes and an unopened pack of cigarettes but decided they weren’t that tasty and left them behind. Lesson learned - that night we secured all of our food. I imagine the raccoons showing up with more empty grocery sacks only to be disappointed that they couldn’t grocery shop at our camp again that night.
We spent Friday at the lake swimming. The weather was hot and humid during the day, so cooling off in the lake was like heaven. We had brought along several tubes so that we could just float around lazily. They were great once they were all blown up and the lightheadedness passed. We had a little trouble getting the tubes down to the lake. I had tied the tubes into the bed of the truck but apparently not very securely. We hadn’t gone very far down the road when the tubes launched themselves out of the truck and , still tied to the truck, kind of floated along behind us like balloons. We stopped several times to tie them more securely but they escaped every time. We did manage to get to the beach area without losing any of the tubes or causing a traffic accident.
Steve joined us Friday evening after work. I was glad to see him. Usually when we camp Steve does most of the cooking. I really like that. So first order of business on Saturday was the cooking of a big breakfast.
I had been doing all of our cooking on a propane burner or the campfire, Steve broke out the big Coleman stove. It runs on gasoline and scares me a little. There was a small problem with the fuel nozzle resulting in a huge gasoline fire. We all kind of stood around wondering whether the flames would catch the tree on fire or if there would be a big boom. One of the kids grabbed the fire extinguisher just in case.
The fire burned out fairly quickly thanks to Steve’s quick action of removing the fuel tank. He adjusted the nozzle and breakfast prep continued without any one getting blown up.
Saturday we spent swimming and jetskiing. I’ve never ridden or driven a jetski before and all I can say is OH MY GOD THAT’S AWESOME!!! Those are so much fun! I could have spent the entire day just jetting around the lake. That’s not to say that the jet skiing went without a hitch though. We had rented 2 waverunners. Steve, Violet and Jon rode one and April and I rode the other one. Steve had let Violet take a turn driving the jet ski and during the shuffle to get everyone back in their original spots they ended up overboard. Violet was a little freaked at first to be in the water out in the middle of the lake. But then she realized that her life jacket made her buoyant and she just bobbed along until she could get back on the waverunner. April and I were minding our own business, watching Steve, Jon and Violet getting back on the jetski, when a big wave swamped our waverunner and we ended up overboard too! No injuries or damages, but Steve’s eyeglasses and my sunglasses ended up at the bottom of Stockton Lake.
We had a great time and are looking forward to going back on Labor Day weekend. Jon and April are planning to take the boater’s safety course that is required so they can ride the waverunners by themselves. Violet is bummed that you have to be 14 before you can operate a waverunner. On the drive home she was full of plans for a 14th birthday party that would definitely include jetskis. There will be hours of jetski riding for her and her friends. Maybe she will even own a jetski by then. Maybe. It could happen. Maybe dad and I will buy some. We liked it too, right? I just smiled and let her talk. I think she may have forgotten her birthday is in January.
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