The camping/float trip blog

A group of friends went camping with us Friday and then we floated the Illinois River on Saturday. I've been excited about this trip for over a month and was really happy when Friday finally arrived. I went to Wal-Mart to buy all the food and then packed all of our camping gear into Mike's car. The plan was to have 3 people ride in our car with us, but I quickly realized that would not be happening...seeing how the trunk and the backseat were stuffed to the brim and I was holding in my lap Mike's guitar and some other miscellaneous items. Lucky for us, two of the three that were planning to ride with us called to say they were running 2 hours behind and would just meet us out there. Whew! Problem 1 solved.

When we got to our meeting destination we did a little rearranging to fit one more person in our car, and our 3 car caravan headed off to Tahlequah. Our car is the front of the lead and made light of the fact the other two cars were dragging behind us. We get about 10 minutes outside of Tahlequah (on Hwy 82, which has zero shoulder on it), and Mike delivers the bad news: "My car just died." Oh goody. Lucky for us, 25 feet ahead is a turn off, so he makes a hard left and puts it park. We have about an hour and a half left of daylight. The next 30-45 minutes played out like this:

Problem 2 became: What the heck is wrong with his car? (I gotta say, it was a little humorous to watch 5 guys hovered underneath the hood trying to "figure it out" while us gals chilled in the backseat.

Problem 3 quickly became: If we can't get his car fixed, how the heck are we going to get 12 people and all their gear into two cars to the campsite, which is still 30 minutes away?

Solution 2 was suggested: Call AAA. Problem. We don't have AAA. Next.
Solution 3: Call a wrecker. That will cost $200 or more. Next.
Solution 4: Peter take all the girls to the campsite and start setting up camp since we only have about 45 minutes of daylight left. The rest of the guys will go to AutoZone in town get a strap or chain so Brandon can pull Mike's car into town with his truck. Then AutoZone will run a diagnostic test on it to see what's wrong. Sounds good. Let's do that.

Problem 4: My cell phone gets no service at our campsite. How do I call the guys to give them an update and check on their status?

Solution 5: Use the campground's phone to make lots of long-distance calls. :)

Done. Now what? The part Mike needs won't arrive to AutoZone until 2 pm the next day.

Problem 5 surfaced: How do we get 5 guys back to camp (with all the gear from Mike's car) in a truck with only 2 seats that are currently filled with people and a bed that is jammed full of camping stuff?

Solution 6: The car that was running late was just arriving into Tahlequah, so they will stop by Autozone and pick up a load and the truck will carry the rest.

When they arrived at camp, I swear it looked like the cartoons where a load of characters were squished in a box, you remove the box and they are still holding the box shape. :) Quite humorous really.

So we camped. And played some volleyball. And laughed. A lot. Ate some dinner. Made jokes about not being able to keep our fire alive b/c the wood was wet. Played/sang some tunes around the no-fire. Laughed some more. Went to bed.

Woke up to float the river after breakfast. We had 3 rafts rented for 12 people. The plan was to float until 1:00ish then Mike and I would split from the group and high-tail it back to camp, run to Autozone, replace the part and head back to camp to pick up our group by the time they finished floating the river.

That didn't happen. Well, part of it did...up until the part where Mike replaces the part and we head back to camp. He goes to replace the part and viola! The timing belt had shredded. Sigh. Dollar signs flashed through my mind and I quickly saw the look of disgust and frustration on Mike's face. Poor guy. "It's just things Mike" I tried to reassure him. "It's just stuff that can be replaced. It could have been a lot worse."

So we call his folks to get a trailor and come get us and tow the car home. The rest of the group (most of it) went on home after they finished floating. A couple of them stayed to hang out with us. We ate dinner at Mazzio's and waited for Mike's parents to rescue us. When they finally arrived, we loaded the car, and drove 50 mph all.the.way.home. Took 2 hours. We got home at 10:00...and were very tired.

Mike has always hated camping. Now I'm not so sure I'll ever get him back out there to camp again. Needless to say, it was an adventuresome weekend. :)

My day just got a little brighter

I just read that Switchfoot is going to be at the Tulsa State Fair this year...for free! That right there is reason to celebrate folks!!

Where did my energy go??

My aerobics class got cancelled last night, so I thought to myself, "I'm already here...might as well do something productive." So I started lifting weights and then suddenly the blue plastic caught my eye...a jump rope! Fun!! I used to do the "Jump Rope For Heart" every year in elementary and I can remember always winning the endurance award. I could jump rope for a very long time. And it was fun.

So, I picked up the jump rope and walked into the empty aerobics room. I noted the time on the clock so I could time myself and started jumping at a fairly slow pace. "Oh this is easy," I thought to myself after the first 30 seconds..."I'll speed it up." How bout a few "double-unders." Yeah. Way to go. You're going strong. Surely I'd been jumping for a good 5-10 minutes. I looked up at the clock. WHAT THE?!?! Only 2 lousy minutes had passed and I was quickly running out of breath and energy. I do NOT remember jumping rope being this difficult. Glad I attempted this in a room by myself. Others would have pointed and laughed I'm sure. I even verbalized to myself how pathetic it was that I couldn't jump rope consistently for more than a couple of minutes.

I'm embarrassed to say I only lasted 10 minutes. Oh what I wouldn't give for the energy level of my 12 year old self.

Say "no" to DFW

I'm a little late in posting this, but I needed some time to cool off before my ranting and raving became incomprehensible. So, you know I went to San Antonio last week for a business trip, which went fantastically well...until the trip home. Of course.

We had some delicious Mexican food, laughed a lot, got some work done, and had lots of time for stories, BUT I should have listened to my body when it gave me those stinking creepies as I noted that we would be flying through DFW to get back to Tulsa. Sigh. "Bad weather" they said. Of course.

We finished with our meeting early and bumped us up to the earlier flight which put us in DFW at 4:20, as opposed to 8:30. YAY. We deboard and go to the reader board to see where our gate will be. Flight to Tulsa scheduled for a 5:20 departure now bumped to 5:45. So we get ourselves front row chairs at Chili's, order drinks and food, and "people watch" the folks that come up to the reader board and leave in disgust.

However, our 5:45 departure quickly changes to 6:15...then 7:15. More drinks and food please. Coming right up. And alas, 8:15. Just leave our tab open ma'am. Thanks.

Meanwhile, the flashbacks from the last trip through DFW were starting to haunt me, and I started to get annoyed. Really annoyed.

Two transvestites, 10 super cute pair of shoes, a man with a broken leg, a woman who kicked the air, nachos, cheesecake and 6 drinks later, the boss comes back with great news: "Don't trust the reader boards, no one knows anything right now." Great. Then, to top it off, our flight just disappears off the board. That can't be good. It wasn't-it got cancelled. So the bosses are in line to get us on the next flight out to Tulsa, as there were only two left. Turns out, we were the last people to get on board the next flight, which really wasn't even a guarantee since there were rumors that the flight was overbooked. Great news for me (not)...I had a "C" boarding pass (we flew SWA), while the majority of my group had "B." Of course.

Thank God-when the time came, they took my ticket and my co-workers had saved seats in the back of the plane. Whew. BUT, I have pretty much decided that it would probably be worth a few extra bucks and an extra hour added to a trip if it meant avoiding DFW. That place is just a magnet for people like me with the worst traveling luck.

San Antonio

Ahhh, I just love being in San Antonio...with the hot, muggy sunshine beating down on me. It is so greatly appreciated after being beat to death with 30 days of rain. Even if it won't be long-lived...I'm going back to Seattle bound T-Town tomorrow.

Just wanted to gloat. Thanks for listening. :)

Tulsa makes CNN homepage

Just sucks that it had to be because of this.

Random

I was 5 minutes late to work today. Five. I have been on time or (gasp) early for the last 2 1/2 weeks (since I changed my schedule to 7-4:30)...until today. Wah! I should get a gold star for being on time/early for that many days in a row. It's like a record for me. Seriously.

I did an hour long aerobics class last night for the first time in 10 years...and I'm not sore today! Except my abs. Two gold stars!

Oh yeah--Happy 4th of July!! Got any exciting plans?

This week I...

celebrated my 3rd wedding anniversary.
ate at Charleston's...TWICE (YUM).
watched my first "4th of July" fireworks display this year.
laughed out loud when Mike asked me if it was supposed to rain this week.
went to another baseball game.
went to my first East Coast Swing dance lesson...And loved it!
got a temporary crown on my back tooth.
offically changed my work schedule from 8-5:30 to 7-4:30.
bought more scrapbook stuff to make me feel better about 20+ consecutive days of rain.
laughed at Simon who decided to sleep under the bed with his butt and back two feet hanging out.
started getting excited about my time off for the holiday/vacation.
got told I "could get thrown in jail for doing that."
listened to my dad lecture for 3 minutes about how excise tax was the government's worst way to steal our money.
got excited for a split second when the sun teased me with only a moment of brightness.