We had a really long, cold, and particularly snowy winter here in Wyoming. It’s finally warming up, and we’re all super excited for camping season! (And also gardening!) Last year, we started our camping season off a little less than ideally.
Here’s a story about that. I like to call it:
The Tale of the Tick
To be sure, he did not start off his day in a bid for fame and notoriety. He was just a small, unassuming American dog tick going about his usual business – looking for a bite. It was a cool and rainy day, and in the course of events, he happened to brush up against a young human girl who was trying to catch a fish. He thus began climbing up, searching for the perfect spot to hide and begin to feed. He didn’t make it… but he became a storied creature in the process.
Our family was all set to enjoy our first camping trip of the season. The weather forecast was rather foreboding (cold temperatures and around 2 inches of rain expected between when we were arriving and when we were heading home), but we opted to keep our reservation anyway. We arrived and got everything set up just before it started to rain, thankfully. The evening was cool, gray, and drizzly, but not too bad overall.
The fishing crew.
PJ and the kids spent a good part of the time fishing, then we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows over the campfire for a late supper before getting ready for bed. We were all feeling pretty damp by then, but the camper was dry and warm and everyone fell asleep fairly quickly. It rained overnight, too. I know because one of the dogs woke me up at 3am and I could hear it on the roof. Fortunately, I was able to convince her to lay back down, because going outside to wander around in my pjs in the cold rain at 3am trying to find her the perfect spot to relieve herself (she’s picky…) didn’t sound appealing at all. I eventually got up with both dogs at 6:30 and took them out for a walk. It was still just drizzly when I left the campsite, but by the time I got back, the rain was picking up.
Now, it typically doesn’t really rain very much in Wyoming, especially in the summers. So, while we’ve had rain while camping before, it has always been a shower that lasted a few hours at most. We camp in a pop up – all six of us and the two dogs. It’s normally enough space, because we don’t really spend much time in the camper other than to sleep, and if need be, we can all hang out around the table and play games while the inclement weather moves on. This day was different. Once it picked up around 7-7:30am, it didn’t stop all day long, except for some brief times where the weather would tease you into coming outside, only to proceed to soak you again.
Met some of the locals.
It was a holiday weekend, and the campground was pretty full when we arrived. By mid-morning, almost everyone had cleared out – chased off early by the rain. In fact, besides us, there was only one other camper in our section, and it was right next to ours.
The park was putting on a kids’ wildlife/outdoor event in one of the pavilions, which we attended, then went for a drive before making a late lunch.
Little bit of sunshine on a rainy day (Western Meadowlark).
After we ate, PJ started in making hot chocolate for the kids, who were all sitting around the pedestal-style table playing games. I was having second thoughts about this arrangement – mostly because the aforementioned table is about as steady as a toddler who’s trying to stand on one leg – but anyway, it was cold and dreary and hot chocolate sounded good. Two or three of the kids had their drinks setting on the table, and PJ was making the rest, when Mountain Girl (our older daughter) felt something crawling on her neck, asked her brother what it was, and proceeded to stand up out of her seat and scream bloody murder upon the reply, “Oh, it’s a tick!”
Abject. Chaos. Ensued.
MG was screaming at the top of her lungs and didn’t seem to be pausing to take a breath at all. The younger two kids were also shrieking and/or crying (from the shock of it all, most likely). Our oldest son was shouting for everyone to calm down. PJ was removing the tick (which wasn’t even attached). I was shouting, “What’s wrong?! Are you hurt?!” because somehow I missed the proclamation of “tick” and thought that she had burned herself with the hot chocolate. Next, MG begins wriggling and squirming because now she thinks she feels things crawling all over her and is just freaking out about it. I’m all, “Everyone hold their hot chocolate!” because I know what’s going to happen if the table gets bumped even one time… but in trying to pick up the hot chocolate, youngest daughter knocks hers over, and then another one spills, too. There is hot chocolate on people, on the table, on the games, the floor, and the seat cushions. In the course of cleaning things up, I decided to pitch the chocolate-soaked games, which set off a whole new round of wailing. It took a while for things to get back to normal…
The next day, our site neighbor joined us at our campfire
for some conversation. Of course, someone asked her if she had heard the
screaming the day before. She did (not sure how she could have missed it). In
fact, it was enough to cause her and her friend (a nurse, incidentally) to
leave their card game momentarily and check out the window of their camper.
They said that they were concerned that someone was hurt, but after a moment
they heard laughter and decided that everything must be okay. We were
all okay… but also, none of us remember laughing. Hysterical wailing, yes.
Laughing, not so much.
In spite of everything, we stayed for the entire length of
our reservation. Made a lot of memories for sure, and learned a few things (I
think this is when we first realized that we’d begun to outgrow our compact
little camper, which we bought several years ago when the kids were quite a bit
smaller). As we were leaving, the sun finally started to peak out from behind
the clouds (of course).
Larkspur.
It has been almost an entire year now since that fateful day. We just recently went on a hike in the Black Hills this spring. I warned everyone ahead of time, because I had read that the area has a lot of ticks in the spring and early summer. They weren’t kidding. The ticks were so thick that you could actually see them hanging onto the blades of dry grass along the trail. Got through the “I want to go back to the car!” freak out of the first half-mile with NO screaming, and went on to hike about six miles total. Picked a couple ticks off of our clothing that day, but not even the dogs had one latch on, so that was a plus.
Enjoy all your summer adventures, and try to stay calm in the face of ticks! 😉
