3 Strikes we're out...

Three times in 3 years I've taken my girls camping. Three times in 3 years it has rained on Saturday. I know I live in Washington state and all but I would really REALLY love a camping trip with nice weather the whole time.

I also have to figure out how to handle this encampment director/troop leader position. The obvious and easy answer is to not be the encampment director, and after this year I am tempted to throw in the encampment director towel. I like the organizing and the putting together ideas and all that. I like to be the boss too, ;) but I really can't keep doing this to my girls. It isn't fair to them that I keep running off to do encampment stuff. I also struggle with when I am with my girls am I missing something I'm supposed to be doing for the encampment. This year, though, it did work out for us better though. One of the troops that was in an indoor unit (as opposed to our 1 wall and 3 1/2 walled cabins) left Saturday night instead of Sunday. I snuck my girls over. We slept in relative comfort (it was still a bit cold but not COLD like it was going to be).

I did have some trouble really early on Friday night. One new troop who had never been out there was really bitter about their location and their cabins. I can't totally say I blame them. Their cabins were more 'open air' than ours. Imagine a diorama box. That was their cabins. But the bottom line was they had too many people and I would've had to put them either in 2 units or in this 1 big unit. I had just arrived when they came stalking over all pissed off. The cabins were bad. They were too spread apart. They thought they were going to be all in 1 giant cabin. Blah blah blah. So I placated as best I could which wasn't at all and sent them on their way. Then a short time later, they were back and yelling all over me. My moms amuse me... they were inside the lodge and ready to come out and have my back in case I needed it. :) Later I discovered there were 2 cliques in this troop. Clique 1 was fine with it and coped and were actually VERY helpful in the kitchen and all that. Clique 2 were the bitches and not fine and not helpful and generally in the way acting all entitled. The interesting thing, they were all the same type of background (fancy private school kids, high powered moms).

I spent most of Saturday wet. It started raining in the early afternoon (I think during lunch) but we persevered. We hiked around the lake and I got soaked. Then we hiked further to look at a bird blind and I was still soaked. By the time I got my wet tennis shoes and socks off my feet were dying from being so wet the whole day. My tendon is also looking very bad today. I just couldn't boot it in the rain. All the rain ruined my favorite part about camping... the shower after camp where all this woodsmoke and out door smell just totally seeps out of my pores while I shower reminding me of camp. Not so much this time. We did campfire indoors and I just smelled of damp and must and ickyness.

The most important part, though, the kids had fun. I even heard from some of the nonbitchy moms from bitch troop that their girls enjoyed themselves and wore their sleeping outside like a badge of honor. They all really liked the painting the pots and the moms thought it was a clever idea and were, of course, pleased. So that's the best part. Oh and the volunteer I had from my employer rocked! And the quantity cook I managed to secure was also awesome. It was a good trip on the whole.