Camping!

Camping at Stockdale Park, Tuttle Creek Lake, Kansas 8/6/2008 - 8/9/2008

The Peeps:
Kevineb
Big Rig
Jet Li
J-9
Icrad
Princess Flip-Flop
Jeep
Steep (Jeep's brother)
Caleep (Jeep's brother)
Pistachio (Steep's flavor of the week)
Cinder (Jeep & Princess' dog)

The Willys:
1946 (black)
1948 (green)
1949 (red)

Day 1: Arrival
Princess Flip-Flop, Icrad, Jet Li, and J-9 left early to set up camp. Caleep, Steep, and Pistachio met them there towing both the 48 and the 49 behind Caleep's truck. Jeep, Big Rig, Cinder, and I left after work and towed the 46 on the trailer. We arrived shortly after dark, ate some foil dinners, made s'mores and talked around the campfire. The boys slept in the large tent I borrowed from my sister-in-law. She told me it was her baby and I would be in big trouble if anything happened to it. The girls slept in the other tent except for J-9 The Adventurous. J-9 slept under the stars with her sleeping bag on a tarp. In the morning she reports that she was greeted in the middle of the night by a frog and some furry woodland creature "larger than a squirrel."

Day 2: There Will Be Mud
I slept horribly. I may have gotten 3 or 4 hours of low quality sleep. I don't know if it was because of the weird curvature of the ground under my spot in the tent, or because space was a little cramped, or because there were other people around, but it was not a good night for me. After a lovely breakfast we head out for the off-road trails. I'm grateful that it was cloudy and not too hot. I started out in the back of the 48 next to Big Rig with Steep at the helm and Pistachio riding shotgun. To initiate us I suppose, Steep promptly drives us over the edge of a cliff. After bouncing off a few boulders we come to an abrupt stop facing down into the ravine with the jeep standing on the front bumper against a large rock and gasoline pouring out of the tank. We were able to push the rock away to let Caleep drive it down to the bottom.


Eventually I put the camera down and helped move the rock.

The jeep was stuck near where Big Rig is standing (yellow shirt). Sorry it's fuzzy.

Continuing on, Steep and Caleep show us how to get a jeep to climb vertical rocks that are nearly as tall as the tires. We lost the 46 with Jeep and Flip-Flop for most of the afternoon. I drove the 48 for a while with J-9 and Steep. It took me a while to trust the engine braking while going down steep slopes, but eventually I got the hang of it. The engine slows it down MUCH better than the lousy brakes. Icrad drove the 49 with Caleep and Pistachio. Big Rig drove his Dodge Ram for a while with Jet Li and Cinder while Jeep and Flip-Flop went for a spin in their Kia Sportage, somehow getting separated from the group again.

After dinner, Princess Flip-Flop, Jeep, Jet Li, Icrad, and J-9 went for a dip in the lake while Big Rig stood by on Life Guard Duty. Cinder and I went for a jog. My theory was that jogging would temporarily wake myself up, and would also ensure I was so exhausted I would have no choice but to sleep that night. Caleep built a fire while Steep and Pistachio wandered off to who-knows-where to do who-knows-what. I did sleep much better this night.

Day 3: The Little Engine That Almost Could
Friday was sunny and hot. I bathed myself in sunscreen over and over. We lost the 46 with Jeep and Flip-Flop again in the morning.

After lunch I rode in the back of the 46 next to Icrad with Jeep driving, Flip-Flop riding shotgun, and Cinder sitting in between the seats. It was quite exciting considering the rear seat in the 46 does not have any seatbelts yet. The 46 doesn't seem to like going up hills. Instead it likes to die about 3/4s of the way up, leaving us to roll down the hill backwards with only a hint of braking power (the 46 had NO brakes earlier, but Jeep "fixed" it so it had some brakes at this time.)

As I was with Jeep's group he somehow got separated from the group again. In our absence the rest of the group had some fun. As I understand the story, Caleep drove the 48 down a hill and got sucked into a deep rut, nearly tipping the jeep on its side and steering it toward a tree. The front of the jeep passed by the tree, but the taller roll bar crashed into a large branch as a smaller branch poked through the windshield. The impact caused major damage to the frame and separated part of the body at the driver's "door". I'll post pictures of the damage later when I get copies from the others.

Caleep, Steep, and Pistachio had to leave after lunch, taking the 48 and the 49 with them, thus ending the off-roading portion of our trip.


Steep, Pistachio, Jet Li, Icrad, Caleep, J-9, Big Rig, Kevineb, Princess Flip-Flop, Jeep, Cinder

Somehow the previous swimmers convinced Big Rig and I to go swimming with them. I don't swim very often or very well, but we had a lot of fun. We skipped rocks, launched each other out of the water, and played chicken. The girls were tough enough to have the guys on their shoulders for a while too.

Friday night we all decided to sleep under the stars on the tarp. Well, all of us except for Big Rig who went to get his pillow and sleeping bag out of the tent and was so tempted to take a nap first that he never came back out. Icrad and I stayed up pretty late talking to each other, which was really nice because we don't see each other very often. We overheard a man in a truck from the park service tell the group next to us to clean up their food because there have been many reports about raccoons. We decided not to share this information with J-9 who had the encounter with the mystery creature on the first night.

Day 4: Evacuation
After Flip-Flop yelled at us sometime around 3:00am, Icrad and I decided to shut up and go to sleep. I slept well for the first couple hours, but woke up at about 5:00am. I heard thunder in the distance and since I couldn't get back to sleep I figured I would wait to see if it would rain so I could warn the others. The rain started at 5:30am and we all scrambled to the tents. At 7:00am the girls awoke and discovered their tent was filling with water, so they joined us in the larger tent. We continued dozing in and out of sleep for about another hour; or at least I did, so I'm guess everybody else did too. We were having a breakfast of yogurt and granola bars when the wind started to get pretty strong and the walls of the tent started billowing inward. Having fought a good fight, at 9:00am the wall of the tent came down.

We evacuated the tent and quickly packed everything up. I was folding up a tarp with two corners in each hand and the wind nearly lifted me off the ground like a parasail. The force of the wind split three of the fiberglass tent poles, broke two stakes - one by snapping the head off and the other by ripping it apart like pealing a banana. The stakes are pounded through metal rings that resemble large key rings - a single metal piece coiled around twice. The force of the wind pulling the tent away from the stake pulled one of the rings out of shape until it was one big loop.

By 10:00am we were on the road heading back home.

In the tent shortly before the collapse.
Big Rig (throwing rock horns to the camera, our traditional salute), Jet Li, J-9 (a bit sun burned), Icrad, and Kevineb
You've got to love these girls. They hadn't seen a real shower in days, they were unpleasantly awakened at 5:30am and again at 7:00, makeup is the furthest thing from their minds, and yet early in the morning they still look fantastic.

Quotes:
- You know what happens when you assume. You make an ass of yourself and some guy named Umption. (Jeep fails on his delivery.)
- Let me look at this first. I wouldn't want to pull a Steep. (Caleep's final words before he nearly broke the 48 in half.)
- You may not realize this, but I took my shorts off 15 minutes ago. (Kevineb joking to Icrad while swimming in the lake.)
- Come here, baby. Kiss me. (Kevineb's secret to winning a game of Chicken.)
- Somebody go check on Pistachio. Make sure she's not purging. (Many times by many people.)
- You wouldn't happen to know anything about jeeps, would you? (Stranger in distress speaking to Jeep.)
- I've never slept outside before. (Pistachio)
- I've never driven on a dirt road before. (Pistachio)
- I've never used a toilet that doesn't flush before. (Pistachio)
- Oh look! A vacuum hose! (Jeep finds the exact piece he needs to fix the Kia's 4-wheel-drive out lying along the trail.)
- Wow, after this I think I have a new respect for Browning tents. (Icrad, just seconds before the poles snapped, the stakes broke, and the tent collapsed.)
- This trip just went from Awesome to Epic, and is quickly approaching Legendary status. (Kevineb)

More pictures will be posted later.