Camping

Dear _______,

Jack and I went camping this weekend at La Jolla National Park, in the Ozarks. At first I was worried about spending two days away from the rest of the family, but we had such a great time that I am really glad we went. In fact, it was one of the best times I have ever had with Jack - and what makes it even better is that he thinks so too. He’s a great son.

We stayed in a cabin instead of a tent because the weather forecast was for thunder and lightening, and I don’t think I ever got over the trauma of freezing my butt off in 3 inches of water inside of that leaky-ass tent on the Bruce Peninsula back in ’94. And for only slightly more money than the standard version, we got a “deluxe” cabin, which meant the place had a TV and shower. Having been raised with Charter Cable’s Silver option, Jack was amazed that the “old fashioned” TV we had only received 3 channels (or 4, if you count the one with lots of static). It was quite a shock to him that Cartoon Network was not included among these channels.

During the day we toured the Merimac Caves (Jessie James’ one-time hide out), went canoeing in a down pour, fished in the rain, chopped wood & made a spear in the drizzle, built a smoldering fire (well, we tried to, any way), went to a zoo (Jack actually held an alligator), wrestled with each other, had a pillow fight, ate cold corned beef hash and Spaghettios out of the can, caught tadpoles, and panned for gold. Jack actually found two rather large pieces of gold – luckily, he never did catch on that I had seeded the area with Pyrite (fool’s gold) before hand. He even tried to pay for lunch with one of the nuggets, but the waitress told him that a chunk of gold that size was worth much more than lunch, and that he should save it.

Most of the tadpoles died the first night, but the survivors have been doing better since we started to feed them.

Take care.

M.