So, there we were—no fire…raw, uncooked food…and a tent that looked like it was constructed by a team of drunk squirrels.
Undaunted, my new young wife and I decided to make proverbial lemonade from our lemons. Since I had camped in the area many times previous, I knew of a backwoods café about 25 miles away, that usually stayed open as long as the owner stayed awake.
Road Sign for the Restaurant--should have tipped us off!
We piled back into the car and headed over, ravenous for a meal. Though I had camped in this spot before, I had never eaten at this particular café, as I had always been able cook my own food. Now, since we were prohibited from making a fire, and since we were too broke to buy our own camp stove, we had been forced to give this little backwoods restaurant a try.
When we arrived at establishment, we realized that we were the only patrons in the café. As we ordered and awaited our dinner, out to the corner of our eyes we could see various people wandering around the café, but we were unsure whether they were employees, family members, or maybe ghosts of people who had died here. They kept giving us strange looks, and I swore I heard the banjo music from Deliverance in the background. I looked over at my wife, and I could see that she was thinking the same thing—let’s eat and get out!
The food came quickly. When we started eating, we found out quickly that this little café was never going to be rated in any Zagat’s guide anytime soon. Our Minestrone Soup had UFOs (Unidentified Floating Objects) in it. This prompted us to play a little game. One of us would scoop up a piece of…something…from the soup bowl with our spoon and the other person would have to guess ‘Animal, vegetable, or mineral’. Plus, we had to hold our sandwiches down to keep them from crawling away.
We ate as much as we could, and headed out and back to the campground. It was late when he made it back, so we decided to hit the hay, so we could get up early for a hike.
In the middle of the night, however, my wife woke up sick and nauseous. I tried to blame it on the café, but as she felt worse and worse as the minutes passed, I realized that it probably wasn’t the food we ate. She tried to fight it, as we wanted to spend the weekend hiking and fishing, but I could see that she was really not feeling good. After watching my wife be miserable for quite awhile, I decided that it was best to pack it in, and head over to an urgent care center to have her checked out. And I’m glad we did, as doctors informed us that night that my wife had a really bad
infection and needed antibiotics ASAP.
So out lovely camping weekend turned out to be a disastrous 18 hours of mayhem. As strange as it sounds, though, it was one of the best camping trips I had ever had. Even though all the pitfalls…Missing camping gear…ancient and broken tent…no fire and no food…midnight drive to urgent car… my wife and I were laughing and having fun. On this trip I realized that there is nothing the world could throw at us that we couldn’t get through together. The trip was amazing simply for the fact that my wife was with me. She is my best friend, and even a horrible camping trip with her is better than a “perfect” trip without her.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Do you have a romantic camping or travel story? We would love to hear it! Submit a guest blog or post a comment.
Trekking In Tasmania
WOW!! seems like you are the luckiest person on earth that you were accompanied by your true love. Hope you make such trips every year and God bless both of you!
Corey Grant
@cindy
That is hilarious! I was laughing through your entire honeymoon story. Thanks for sharing!
Cindy
We were so poor when we got married in 1976 that my dress was from Montgomery Wards, friends did our flowers and food. The big honeymoon was going to be a camping trip from Illinois to Loveland CO and back. We got enough money at the wedding to pay our gas and camping, so off we went. First issue was a bad exhaust pipe that my new husband wired up for the trip. I opened my suitcase for clothes and there was no underwear – some enterprising person had taken it. We went shopping, then found a campsite. It was so lovely and we went up the Big Thompson canyon each day to Estes park, or just driving. We came home one night and climbed on our air mattresses and sleeping bags only to find a HUGE lump underneath. Someone had put a huge rock under our tent – apparently thinking it was a funny joke to play on newlyweds (did it show?). We had a great time. Only one month later the horrible flood came through and killed several people in that same canyon. I think camping was a great way to start life – we certainly had to learn to work together.
Diane Berry
Wonderful story, Corey! Thanks for sharing it. Happy Valentine’s Day to you two! Hope you’re doing something more romantic tonite than we are–Tuesday is the night of the Domestic Violence Group Terry and I run together. But we enjoy doing it together and laugh alot–believe it or not!