Camping and I do not get along. And I'm not talking about Harold Camping, the guy who made the prediction that the world would end Saturday, I mean real camping with tents and bugs. Maybe the world did end and camping is my hellish fate.
For Eric, camping is heaven. Not camping the way that we did it Sunday night, in a cheesy RV park off the highway. I'm talking 'real' camping where you wander into the wilderness and throw down a tent under the stars and play guitar around a campfire. Needless to say, Eric and I were not getting along Sunday evening. I stayed and slept in the van all night, cursing Nic and Eric every time they opened the van door to grab supplies. Each repeated offense let in a fresh swarm of mosquitoes and flies attracted to the dome light and increased my irritability. My bed consisted of the two back seats up against the t-shirt bins. I finally figured out that a sweat shirt was not sufficient coverage for me and so I finally crashed between the hours of 5am and 10am after retrieving my sleeping back from the back of the van, without opening the hatch.
The thing is, my day started well. I took some cold medicine for the first time and slept at the bartender's house until 2pm. At the Maggie's place, I discover that they own a kitten named Ziggy Stardust who can still be held in one hand and is one of the cutest kittens I've ever seen. She was rescued from a cat hoarder and now resides at their house where her job is to be adorable and to make my entire weekend.
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| Ziggy Stardust! |
After showering and leaving Ziggy behind, we hit the road in search of a camp ground en-route to the gig in New York on Monday. The first camping spot we found was on a lake in a public park. It was a beautiful spot with a fire pit and everything, but as soon as we opened the door we were attacked by swarms of mosquitoes, too many for even Eric to handle. So we headed down the road and found another park, this one a national park, just on the other side of the road from the lake.
This one is perfect for Eric. We have to drive up a steep hill through a forest of trees to find the camping spots, one of which is directly in front of a natural spring flowing down layered rocks. It is a pristine sight for sure, but we encounter a park ranger who informs us that this site is not yet open.
Discouraged but not defeated, we head down the road only to discover the exact opposite of what Eric had been searching for. It is an RV camping park with cottages called (and I am not making this up) 'Kampersville' featuring a giant creepy squirrel in a striped bathing suit on it's sign AND an enormous color statue of said creepy squirrel mascot in the striped bathing suit.
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| Seriously! Who would want to swim with this squirrel? |
While Nic and Eric find refuge and bug repellent in the fire that they make, I bunker myself in the back seat of the van, swatting and killing bugs and surfing the net at the cost of $8 for a day. Eric and Nic sleep comfortably outside in the tent that they have been itching to use since the beginning of the trip, and I fight with the fact that I must rest with my knees bent the entire night.
