the tindog coffeehouse

We decided to go camping this weekend, a quick family getaway to Lake Whitney. Well, it sounded good at the time, anyway.

After enduring a traffic jam on I-35 in Fort Worth, we finally made it to the campsite about 11:30 Saturday morning and unpacked and set up the tent. We took a walk down to the lake and then came back to fix some sandwiches for lunch. But as we sat down to eat, we were inundated with a swarm of Mexican honey wasps. When they started to get aggressive, we abandoned our food and scrambled for the car. The girls made it in safely, but I was stung on the back of the neck.

Unsure of what else to do, we drove back to the front office. They told us some other campers had also complained about the wasps. They offered to move us, but we decided to give the original spot another chance since we had already unpacked everything. By the time we got back, most of the wasps had moved on. We slathered on the bug spray and settled back in with no other problems. Then we took another walk and killed some time before dinner. Finally, everything seemed to be going better.

With the sun going down, we started the fire and cooked up some hot dogs, but it was soon evident we hadn’t bought enough firewood. We had planned on having a campfire that evening and another in the morning, but that was no longer an option. We made smores and hot chocolate, then put the girls to bed about 8. We used up the rest of our firewood, and the fire was out about 9:15, so we decided to go to bed ourselves (instead of standing around in the cold).

I took the cot, and Christy settled in between the girls. And then we lay there, awake and shivering. It was cold. Really cold. We had a horrible night. The girls slept OK, but Christy and I froze as the temperatures got down into the upper 30s. We bundled up as much as we could, but we just weren’t prepared for how cold it was. (We had also forgotten the girls’ sleeping bags, so they had most of our blankets.) As we tossed and turned, we were both thinking about how we could tear down everything and get out of there in the middle of the night, but even if we could, the park gate was closed until 8:00 AM.

About 5:30 we couldn’t take it any more. We all got in the car and started the engine, turning the heat on high. We drove over to the restrooms so everyone could go to the bathroom, and then we sat there in the parking lot for about 40 minutes just trying to get warm. Finally we drove back over to the campsite and sat in the car another 15 or 20 minutes until it was somewhat light outside. I got out and started the coffee, and we gradually started packing up. We had worked really hard to fit everything in the back of the truck on the way there, but we didn’t have the same patience leaving. Nevertheless, we somehow got everything packed back up and then left right before 8:00, finding a donut shop in Hillsboro, where we stumbled in and got some breakfast.

It wasn’t all bad though. The lake itself was really pretty, and we did have some fun Saturday afternoon. We even saw an armadillo and followed it back to its burrow. And the girls loved cooking hot dogs over the fire and making smores.

Looking back, it was certainly a memorable adventure and fun in a twisted sort of way. I just hope we’re more prepared the next time.