My Tussle With Mother Nature

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine having a whole bunch of kids and spending my vacation wearing nothing but sunburn.

Let’s be clear about this. When it was just the two of us, my sweetie never showed any hint of being a nature lover. That lasted until after we had the first four kids and one day he lugged home the biggest, smelliest second hand tent I have ever seen, outside of a circus.

Next thing I know, and I’m still confused about this, but then I wasn’t getting a lot of sleep because of the kids. Anyway, next thing I know we are weekly visitors to a local nudist camp and bingo, comes vacation time, he hauls out the big smelly tent and we’re off to rough it in the camp woods.

The good news was that the laundry would be almost non-existent except for the cloth diapers.

The bad news was that every once in a while a plane swooped down to dump chemicals over the campsite to kill the mosquitoes. No one seemed to mind that we were there also. Apparently there was a quaint notion that these chemicals knew they were only to kill the insects.

Eventually I got more sleep or else the chemicals were changing my brain patterns but I had a fervent desire to see more than a bunch of naked people swimming in a muddy pond and even the volley ball ceased to be entertaining. I needed more and one of the babies gave us an exit.

It happened on a Sunday, the afternoon of the monthly meeting and this bunch loved meetings. I have no idea what they talked about but they did ramble on. It was mandatory to meet on the grassy hill and look thoughtful and superior because we were nudists.

Then this glorious day I remember so fondly, Carl the camp bore was droning on and on. The baby was just learning to walk and he crawled over near Carl and looked for something to grab onto to pull himself up. Yep, that’s what he grabbed. Carl turned an unsettling shade of ashcan gray and his voice turned to croaks. The baby got his footing and toddled off with me right on his little heels.

I wouldn’t say we were ostracized but it did seem like a good time to re-think our weekend plans. We bought a camper van complete with fridge, stove and sink and on weekends we hitched a tent trailer to that and we never looked back.