Life Lessons

There are some lessons in life that you never forget.  Like don't stick your hand on a piece of wood in the campfire.  Or don't stick a penny in light socket.  Once you've learned the lesson the hard way, it never happens again.  Brent and I learned a lesson over the weekend that will be one of those things that we never forget to do or double-check.

Our lesson learned...  ***IMPORTANT***  When backyard camping, make absolutely certain that the sprinkler system is turned off!

The weekend went off the rails Friday afternoon.  The area we planned to go real camping was flooded out by an 8 inch hailstorm on Thursday.  So we switched to plan B, backyard camping at Heidi and Jason's.  They are the only ones of the group that have a backyard to camp in so it was the default location.  And Jason has an outdoor fire thingy, so that helps in the Smores department.

Camping started off with Scrabble in the air conditioned house.  Heidi kicked our butts.  The boys went off tool shopping.  Then the boys took a nap on the couch.  The girls and I proudly spread out our tents through the yard and set them up at Camp Herzog.  We did a fine job!!  No men needed.

The boys barbecued brats for dinner.  Then when the sun finally set, it was fire and smores time!

The obligatory scrapbook photo taking ensued.  If Heidi, Bryn, and I weren't scrappers, we'd never remember to take photos.

When we finally called it a night, we all headed off to our respective tents.  Sleep came quickly.  Within a couple of hours, I was awake.  Brinkley doesn't sleep well in a tent.  He's constantly pacing and trying to stick his head out the screen door.  He stares endlessly into the darkness.  He takes his guard dog duty seriously when it comes to camping.   On and off through the night I woke to Brinkley's tent antics.

At one point, I checked my watch.  It was 3:15.  A few minutes later I heard yard sprinklers kick on.  They were distant.  I was trying to calculate where they could be.  I thought maybe the garden area on the side of the house or the front yard.  For half an hour or so I listen to the sound of water spraying.  Then it happened.  The sprinklers turned off and silence came.  For a few brief seconds, I could only hear Brink's heavy sniffing/breathing and crickets chirping.

Then the popping and hissing noise of a sprinklers starting up blasted through the tent, followed quickly by water!!  Through the screen it came, layering the top of our sleeping bags, startling Brinkley, and causing Brent to go from sound asleep on his back dreaming about snow plows to his knees and hands in less than a second.  While swatting at the incoming water, we zipped up the flaps behind the screens and moved to the center of the tent.  I fumbled for my glasses and flashlight.

It sounded like our tent was going through a car wash!  There must have been a spicket right outside the front of our tent shooting right at us!  After a minute or so I started patting around beside us.  The floor was starting to get wet from underneath.  Brent scooted out the back door and took off into the darkness.  He eventually found the water main and turned it off.  He saved the rest of the campers from the same fate.  

The whole event was HILARIOUS.  It's something that would have happened to Lucy and Ricky.  I slept on the Herzog couch and Brent slept in the wet tent.  So while we were avoiding the flooding in the mountains, we still managed to get wet while camping.  Our streak continues.