We Are the Weekenders

If you’ve never been awakened before 6am by a group of turkeys surrounding your tent, you’re kind of missing out. 

Jolted awake from a dead sleep by a sound that is less like the gobble of childhood games and more like a cross between a man’s stifled laugh and a dog’s bark, I hear a call and response echoing across the campground and the rustle of feathers as they pass the tent. After about fifteen minutes of this, I unzipped myself from my red cocoon of a sleeping bag and jam my glasses on, emerging from the tent and hoping to catch a glimpse. A Tom turkey stands right at the tree line, less than ten feet away, his tail fanned out, silhouetted by the rising sun and catching the hints of green, purple, and brown amidst the black. Slowly he turns his flat, run over-looking head to me— a question? 

“Ohh, I don’t want any trouble,” I murmur, knowing somehow he can hear me, and slowly back into my tent.

Home sweet home 

The long weekend began with...

Thursday afternoon, and a promise of a Friday off that had been sustaining Ben and I for weeks. At the end of the spring semester, when you're in that final hour of the school year, any moment of reprieve is welcome. After work, Shelley & I drove out to Raccoon and awaited Ben's arrival while we set everything up in our little campsite. We ended up on the line between our site and Ben's site because the site we had booked was on a slope that would've had us sleeping upside down like bats. 

Once Shells and I had the tent set up, Shelley continued unloading the car while I set up our home away from home-- the tent that sparks conversations and always secretly reminds me of one of the wizarding tents at the Quidditch World Cup. 

As we were making our trips back and forth from the car and giving Ben a hand here and there, we suddenly heard "Help" coming from the direction of Ben's tent. Shelley kept walking, but I looked over and saw Ben through the mesh window, trapped inside of his tent. Somehow, in trying to inflate his mattress, he had gotten trapped at an angle in the back of the tent and couldn't reach the zipper to let himself out. After doubling over and laughing myself to tears, I unzipped the door so he and Shelley could run back to our house to load Arlandria up with firewood. I elected to stay behind and alternately read and people watch those at the other campsite-- a family of four, including a kid who only knew one song on the ukulele and proceeded to play that over and over and a dad who proceeded to belch loudly and brag about his musical skills as his saucy son asked, "If you're so good, how come you're not in a band or something?" 

Shelley and Ben returned with firewood and tales of a giant turkey with fanned feathers they had seen a few sites over. Ben and I set up hammocks in a triangle of trees as Shelley excitedly made dinner on the flat top grill (and I truly mean excitedly). They had burgers and I had filet mignon on a Caesar salad, and we sat around the fire drinking seltzers and sharing childhood stories and roasting each other, which is apparently what the three of us do on camping excursions together. 

Eventually it got so cold that we decided to go to our tents to curl up, and it was FREEZING that night, which is surprising for mid-May. Even just switching to our pajamas had me shivering so convulsively I could barely get socks on, and we ended up barely sleeping. 

When we woke up in the morning, Ben was gone. 

He had texted us that he went to get a new tent that didn't require him to be horizontal to dress and some warmer clothes. 

Shelley and I had parfaits she made us as we sat near the fire and warmed up in the morning sun. I wrapped myself up in our two-person hammock and alternately tried to read and doze. 

When Ben returned, the three of us ventured down to the beach trail and I walked into the lake and barefoot through the sand. It was a little murky since it was so early in the season, but so grounding nonetheless. Shelley & Ben hung out on the grass line and then we hiked back up the very treacherous beach trail and tried not to die. They say it's one of the more intense ones and they aren't lying. 

bluebells

As we sat enjoying chicken and asparagus for lunch, we talked about the dramatic family next to us and how they had packed up and left. They made several trips, and it turns out they had set up camp at another site. I was glad to see them go, I said, because that guy burped and farted all night and snored so loud I swore he would wake the dead. Ben just kind of looked at us and blinked, and then finally said, "Are we really not going to talk about this?" Apparently, some drama had gone down the night before, and the snoring, farting, burping man was complaining about Shelley snoring and how it "sounded like a banshee" (not really a valid comparison) and how he was going to go over to our tent and say something, and his wife was trying to talk him out of it, so Ben was wide awake worried about what would happen and what he'd have to do if someone tried to come to Shelley & me to have words in the middle of the night. Three things: 1) good riddance to bad rubbish 2) between the machete and the police-grade pepper spray, he would not have been a happy camper 3) I've slept beside Shelley for six years and as THEE world's lightest sleeper, I can say that it is not as dramatic as the man who slept in his truck and then switched campsites made it seem. Some people's kids, man. 

We enjoyed this story immensely and are still making banshee references. 

We played some bocce and listened to music, Shelley ran home to grab some warmer clothes, and Ben set up his new tent to get ready for Liv's arrival. She arrived in time for dinner, which was us making hot dogs over the fire. We hung out in the hammocks again (I'm really happy ours had a little line of twinkle lights) and then we watched the stars and told stories around the fire until we all headed to bed, exhausted. 

As one would imagine, having played bocce before didn't mean I was any good. Sports...

Someone else never played before and was much better. Alas. 

Saturday morning, we woke up much warmer. Shelley and I cuddled up on the air mattress for a while waiting for it to get a little lighter (aside: do not camp without an air mattress unless you're doing backpacking-- it is a back saver). 

me & my love 

Shells made a breakfast skillet with eggs, sausage, onions, peppers, and potatoes and then we lounged around for a bit before deciding to head to the lake. 

I got a paddleboard and headed out on the lake while Shelley, Ben, and Liv loaded into their kayaks. At a certain point, I realized no one was behind me so I looped back around and saw Ben & Liv but no Shelley. As I was asking them what happened, I had a very National Geographic moment as Liv yelped and I heard rustling right by my head-- apparently two geese almost flew into my head. Shelley had to go back for a new kayak because as she was paddling, "her life flashed before her eyes" which is our way of saying she almost sunk. There was a hole in the kayak and it was quickly filling up with water. 

Liv & Ben

Once that fiasco was out of the way, we floated around together for a while eating peanut M&M's and enjoying the sunshine. It was a beautiful day. We saw a little turtle lounging on a log. 

I went to paddle around the lake a second time and saw it fly by, so I followed it, and saw it land so I dropped to my knees on the board and paddled up about 10 feet away. I looked at it nod at me and we just kind of sat looking at each other. It was pretty magical, and then Shells joined me and snapped a photo.

We decided to order our own gear after two summers of renting so we could go whenever we wanted-- Shelley got a two person inflatable kayak for us from Amazon & I got a paddleboard (storing that and transporting it on my little hatchback is kind of hilarious). 

We got back and kind of lazed around for a while. Sunshine makes me sleepy. Elizabeth and Jason came up with Ollie to visit us, and we talked and joked around for a while. 

Ollie, Elizabeth, & me

Liv and Ben went for a walk and Shelley napped and I read some more of World of Wonders in the hammock (if you haven't read it, PLEASE DO I linked it here). It's somehow both nostalgic and urgent, and it was the perfect read for a camping weekend.

I had gotten a bocce set from Target prior to this outing, and the four of us played together, and found a baby toad that Ben almost stepped on as we were measuring bocee ball distance using footsteps. Shelley and I scooped him onto a plate and carried him across the street to the woods and safety.

We had hot sausage sandwiches for dinner around the fire, listening to a vibe-y playlist I had and just talking. We heard a lot of barred owls and Shelley & I taught Ben the difference between a mourning dove call and an owl. We made s'mores with giant marshmallows, and I ate mine sandwiched between a chocolate chip cookie, which was one of the best things I've ever tasted in my entire life, and I eat well. We drank wine out of Yeti cups, laughed around the fire, and relaxed into one another. 

This camping weekend was free from phones and television and email and internet and work, and it sort of felt like being a kid, which inevitably (at least for me) brought up a lot of childhood stories. I felt very in touch with myself at like, 9 or 10. It was great-- measuring distance in footsteps (instead of the tape measure we had in the car to measure tables/shelves/pottery (a version of myself that seems very distant from who I was that weekend)) and trying to cartwheel, and not worrying or being anxious or wearing mascara or even brushing my hair, just playing and having a good time. 

Adults should play more. Why has that not been normalized? Why do we have to be so stuffy and serious when in reality adults are just more aware, stressed kids that are kind of playing at knowing what they're doing?

Waking up that Sunday was when I saw the turkey, after a whole weekend of joking "what would happen if one was just at our camp site?" After my encounter, I snuggled back into my sleeping back and up to Shelley again and fell back to sleep. When we awoke, we had parfaits for breakfast and burned the last stick (a Shelley tradition). Shelley & I played a game of War (another of our camp traditions (I won)). 

We broke down camp, which is always sad, and I was able to actually get our tent and all its pieces into the back-- a badge of honor I wear proudly because if you've ever folded a tent, you know that is no easy task. We had chicken and zucchini for lunch, which Ben dropped all over the ground and had to share Liv's. I begrudgingly offered as well but was not even a little upset when he said no. 

We talked a bit and then inevitably had to go, as many of the other campers did over the course of the day. A campsite that was pretty much full at 6:00am while I was making eye contact with a turkey evaporated over the day to just empty grass and forlorn fire pits, while everyone headed back to the land of wifi and television and emails, so so many incessant emails, auto-connecting to wifi instead of the freedom of connecting to nature and all its beauty, of enjoying the small moments we can get in the midst of the 40 hour workweeks that suck our souls. 

We are the weekenders.