We’re here! We arrived at the campsite about 4 p.m. The kids are excited. They want to swim. They also want to dam the creek. They want to hike. They want to fish. They want to explore. They want to build a zip line. They want to trap wild animals.
Whoa! One thing at time. Should common sense prevail, we’d begin by setting up camp. I’m not really anal about that, so what’s the hurry? We’re here to have fun it’s going to be light until 9 p.m. They’ve been cooped up in a car. They’re hot.
So, OK, they scamper into their swim suits, they throw their clothes in the dirt. I’m not anal about that, either. A note here: No one looks worse than my kids on a camping trip. It’s a place to wear out those clothes they refuse to wear to school for fear of jibes from their classmates, or being picked up by CPS.
We go to the water’s edge and they explode into the river. This is the life beyond belief.
“Holy crap!,” says Chris. (I let that one go.) “You mean we’re going to do this for 10 days? Wow!”
Reality sets in 30 minutes later.
“We really do need to set up camp, guys.” I promise them that we’ll make S’mores on the sand bar after dinner. Chris, you’ll recall, is new to the family, and hasn’t had a happy upbringing; he doesn’t know what a S’more is.
“You’ll find out,” says Steve. You’re gonna love ‘em.”
The kids’ job is pitching their tent. They’ve already practiced it on the lawn at home. I set up the kitchen.
It’s poetry in motion.
Dinner. Triage here is to empty the ice chests logically, using first those things which will spoil most easily. We’ll have to go into Etna for more ice at some point, but we don’t need it yet. It’s a 25-mile trip. We’ll have the chicken tonight. It’s already fried and battered; we just need to warm it up a little.
A little more reality now.
“You mean we have to go the bathroom in that?” Chris is apprehensive.
“Well, yeah,” I say, “There is that.”
“It’s not bad,” offers Steve, “Unless you fall in.”
Great. We needed that.
Dinner, S’mores, a little guitar picking, the kids retire to their tent. I sleep outdoors.
Even without the kids’ exuberance, which I enjoy vicariously, these camping trips are a source of joy for me. I just want that joy to trickle down. And it does. I get a fire started the next morning, get the coffee on (for me) and hot water for cocoa (for them), they are up like commandos, and the day begins. Scrambled eggs and link sausage, or bacon.
“I’ve never tasted anything so wonderful,” says Chris, and that makes it all worthwhile.
Today we’ll drive almost to the Etna Summit, take a side road to Taylor Lake and walk around it. Then we hike downstream to the ruins of Taylor Lake Mine, founded by my grandfather and his brother in 1904. It was a rich placer mine, netting them enough for my grandfather to build a new two-story home in Etna, the first in town with indoor plumbing.
“Indoor plumbing” meant that the pump handle was in the kitchen.
We’re on our way home too soon. Those awful clothes got thrown in the garbage can next to the “bathroom” and I presented the kids with the fresh, clean clothes I had secretly packed for them at home before we left.
The remaining question, before we headed down the highway: ”Do we have to look at any more interesting stuff today?”
Robin C. Harris, an 18-year resident of Lake County, is the author of “Journeys out of Darkness, Adventures in Foster Care.” A retired educator, he is a substitute teacher for Lake County schools and has recently completed two works of fiction for children and teens. He is available for tutoring in first through eighth grades. Harris can be contacted at harris.tke@att.net.
