I thought I would sleep longer from the exhaustive night before but I was up at 6:15 am with aches all over. The camp ground sure was hard, not old-bones friendly for sure. My wife was half awake, my sons, still snoozing. I went for a walk to the restroom, about 400 yards away, not exactly close. I could see why my wife wasn’t too thrilled when she had to take our boys to the restroom in the dark. A few people were up but most of them were still sound asleep from the late night partying. I ran into Dr. Wu, who was with our group – 9 families in all. Each family was assigned tasks for the two-night stay, breakfast prep, lunch, dinner and such.
Camping trailers, tents, canopies filled up all available camp sites. Quite a few brought jet skis, fishing boats, some even have satellite dish! These people sure knew how to travel in style. I greeted a few early risers on my way to get freshened up. The restroom wasn’t all that clean and the faucet water was yellowish, but I didn’t care, that’s what camping is all about!
My family was up by the time I got back, so trip #2, took the kids to the restroom. Several of the families in our group were up as well, I could smell bread being toasted, eggs being pan fried. We didn’t really have any trip agenda, sort of go with the follow, perhaps a short hike up the trails or an afternoon at the lake front.
By 9 am, all families were up and had breakfast, my sons were already making and playing with their new friends. The ABC’s got alone quite well. I talked to the organizers, M.H., Prof.Cheng & her hubby, Prof. Kao, a day at the "beach" was for sure in order. But first, we decided to explore around the camp site where we were at first. Quite surprisingly my wife didn’t complain at all. Perhaps there was some hope in this city girl yet! I got the rest of our camping stuff out of the car, the cooler, extension cords, pots and pans, cooking utensils, etc.
Since MH drove his truck, we figured we’d all pack in the bed. With 4 passengers inside the truck, 4 more adults in the back with a bunch of happy kids, we were soon on our way around the park. I hopped into the van driven by Prof. Kao with my wife while our boys were riding in the back of the truck. Within 2 miles we pulled up to a fishing / boating area. As soon as the kids saw the lake, off they went! It wasn’t anywhere nearly as clean as the shore where we got lost and ended up the night before. The kids didn’t care, they had their rakes and pails in hand and were playing in the water. The water was very muddy to say the least, I told my boys not to swim, certainly not to get any water on their faces.
We stayed for about 20 minutes to let the kids play for a while, I then suggested that we checked out the beach on the south end of the park. Since we didn’t have the proper restraints for the truck passengers in the back, we took the back trail. It was long and winding, some sections only allowed one vehicle. It took close to 40 minutes to reach the south end. We knew exactly where to go, the south end beach was cleaner but not by much. It was 1/2 hour past noon and the sun was beating down. My sons had sun screen on as well as sun block shirts. Normally around this time they would be starving for food, but not a word from them.
We stayed and played for well over an hour then it was time to watch up the dirty kids, that took another 1/2 hr. On our trip back to the camp site most of the kids had fallen asleep. The two families responsible for making lunch didn’t disappoint us, they had food ready for the hungry troop! We even had ㄘㄨㄚˋ冰after lunch, kids, adult alike, were all over it.
Kids played games, rode on the scooters, parents chatted, it was a lot of fun. There was a fire ring so a few of the adults went around the site to look for firewood, pine cones, things needed for a camp fire. While our kids were at play, my wife and I helped out with dinner prep. The menu was pretty good: 魯肉飯, 牛肉麵, 咖哩雞, 泡菜, 醃小黃瓜. By the time we all finished dinner it was close to 8:50 pm. My boys were quite tired from a day’s activities, I escorted them to the rest room to brush their teeth. When we got back, the camp fire was already lit and all the other kids were roasting marshmallows.
I let my kids join the marshmallow roasting gang, we would brush teeth again, no big deal. I was quite beat after getting my kids to brush their teeth the second time. At around 9:50 pm, I headed for our tent, within a few minutes I was out. My wife stayed and chatted for another 1/2 hour or so.
original post date: May 23, 2009
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