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
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!
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