On the Road to Camp
June 22, 2007 at precisely 11:00 am my stepmother came to pick Gabriel and me up. My mother in-law was there to greet her. We all exchanged hugs. Lily, my stepmother and Dad’s dog jumped back and forth trying to figure out whom to lick first. We had a lively conversation then got down to business. She was the Ninja Camper and had a checklist to go over.
One hour later, we had the car packed with a smaller list of things we still needed to buy for the trip. After a break for lunch at Macaroni Grill and a stint at REI we hit the road around 2:15 I know this because I was trying to set a watch I had just bought for way too much. Given what I do to watches. I was baffling the poor sales women in the store with my questions. "Will they withstand being hit against a rock? Are they waterproof?" She would pause and give me a startled look. "What are you looking to do with it?" I was trying to justify the price in my mind for a piece of plastic that just tells time, and the date. Oh well I digress.
Gabriel had succeeded in talking Nanni into buying him a Frisbee that lights up. He was insisting on holding it in the car but was getting frustrated that he couldn’t light it up by himself.
We started the drive and by the time we hit Portland proper it was rush hour. Only twenty minutes into the drive Gabriel started asking if we were there yet.
I thought he was doing the bit from Shrek 2 that Donkey does. No, he was serious. I told him it would be over an hour. In the middle of the crazy freeway interchanges in Portland Gabriel says fervently "I need to go potty!"
Nanni looked at me and back at the road. "Can we wait till we are out of the city. It seems some of these exits don’t have immediate re-entry. You end up spending an hour looking to get back on."
I agreed and looked at the signs and noticed we were 5 miles from the last interchange. "Gabriel can you hold it for 10 minutes. We are just looking for an exit."
"Yes, I can"
We lucked out there was a K-Mart. We went there. Since the trip to the bathroom was taking a while, I checked my messages on my cellphone to clear them out. One was from my stepmother the night before. She had called to remind me to plug in the pump for the air-matresses. I had done that but as I sat there listening to the message I realized it was still plugged in at home. She was back at the car with the dog. So I called her and told her what was going on. "There is good news though. We are at a K-mart Gabriel and I will just go to the camping section and look for a pump there."
So that is what I did and I found something better a battery-operated pump. So I checked the batteries needed and headed to the electric department. We picked up two sets of batteries. This all sounds easier then it is. Gabriel was in slow mode. He drags his feet across the floor.
We make it to the car and off we go.
The drive is beautiful.
We reach the site at 4:15 PM. We unload the car and Nanni goes off to pick up my Dad. Gabriel and I work on setting up camp.
--Mom
