....and then they arrived...

Our first night was lovely, peace and absolute quiet except for the Chuck-will's-widow at dusk. I've never actually seen one of these birds, but their call is unmistakable.

Afternoon number two arrived with the sounds of four teen-age boys setting up camp right behind us. Oh. No. Here. We. Go.

They came over and told us that if it got "too loud" to just let them know. Oh, how nice. Amelia told them if they're warning us about being loud, maybe they should find another site. I generally just scare people with silence. Why does silence scare people? I don't know, but it works. Sometimes. They stayed next to us.

At three a.m. the little rodents were still wide awake, guzzling Natural Light beer, breaking tree limbs down, running around shirtless with torch-like objects, and hurling themselves repeatedly into something trying to break it. Four words came to mind for me: Lord of the Flies. It's all fun and games until Piggy is dead.

The morning after:

Four teenagers, eight hours.

With the Conch nowhere to be found, the Crows and Grackles declare war over the carnage.

There's always a silver lining.  Most people, regardless of age, can't party like that every night. There is an ancient camping proverb, "Hangovers make night two a quiet and early one."

In the morning, Amelia let them know that yes, you were loud and obnoxious, and no, we aren't here to police you, you need to police yourselves.

As fate would have at, at 11:00 that night, they packed up in the dark and left.  Good-bye Jack, good-bye Roger, good-bye Beast, good-bye Conch. And R.I.P. Piggy.

-Leah

Trip saver

We're back! In Delaware.

We arrived a full month later than last year due to that nasty April snow storm. May is quite different than April.

We made reservations and went with site number eight, a seemingly innocent little site tucked back from the road about 20 feet. Looked really nice last year... Well, this year it was the only row in the entire campground that was filled. It was spilling over with strange, silent staring people, five tents next to us on one site, screaming children on trikes and bikes. (Shouldn't they be in school?)

Side rant:  You know when you go to see a movie and only a handful people are in the theater, but some nimrod has to sit next to you, maybe two seats away, but too damn close when virtually every seat is available. What is this about? I have ideas, but I won't bore you with my philosophy on the needy pack mentality of humans.

After a quick visit to the camp office we found another site. Hurray! We were the only campers in our new row. Boo! It was 8:30 at night, and started to downpour. The rain drops were the size of small dogs - Pomeranian-sized rain drops.

 I will not lie. Things like setting up camp in the rain can create really tense situations. It's not fun. The good news is that we're pretty quick and efficient at getting the job done.

The Northern Breeze tent was the first thing to go up, and it goes up in minutes. This thing is ah-may-zing.

It's a waterproof shelter that's also a screen tent, and two sides have large awnings. The footprint is 12'x12'. This is larger than most of the rooms in my tiny house, so I feel right at home. This tent is a trip saver. It can handle whatever you throw at it: cold weather (in Maine we zipped the sides down and it was downright toasty inside), wind, bugs, and....Pomeranian-size rain drops.

-Leah