Camping Trip 2012-2

We decided to take a trip down to Louisiana before crawfish season was over and to test out the new popup camper.  We picked a great week to test it out, because it rained like crazy for the last day of our trip.  It rained so much that we came home a day early!

  We found a Jellystone about five hours away and decided to stay there.  This Jellystone was huge.  It had canoes, kayak's, paddle boats, mini golf, four pools, a full time snow cone stand, and a zillion activities.  This time around the kids weren't interested in anything other than the pool and mini golf.  So that's what they did.  Over, and over, and over again.

You may notice I cut Jack's cute little red afro off.  :(  I miss it already, and will let it grow back.  His personality even seems different without it.  

In typical fashion, I digress for a second.  Justice has terrible ADHD.  The H being the prevalent letter in the acronym.  His hyperactivity is so bad that he literally cannot focus on one thing for more than maybe ten seconds before he jumps to the next thing.  During the summer, we don't give him his medication unless we are going somewhere where he really needs it (library, church, etc.).  His medication curbs his appetite so much that he typically won't eat anything at all for an eight - ten hour stretch during the day.  He is extremely thin and we use the summers to try and catch up on the weight he should normally gain during the remainder of the year but doesn't because of his medication.  

This is Justice without his medication:

He is literally running around in circles around the inside edge of that kiddie pool trying to turn it into a whirlpool.  I watched him run laps inside this pool for over an hour.  He had the water spinning so quickly that Jack was floating behind him spinning in a circle the whole time.  Sometimes I think I'm spinning my wheels not giving him his meds during the summer because of the amount of calories he burns.  I think it pretty much cancels it out.   Who runs circles inside a pool for over an hour?  

The kids were only able to stay in the pool for about six hours (only six hours, that's forever in normal family terms, but not these kids.  They think they got a raw deal)  because of the rain.  It started to lightning and the sky literally opened up.  And it rained HARD, and the entire rest of the day.  It rained so hard that our shoes floated down the campsite and I had to send Justice out to find them.  

And now is when I truly begin to appreciate the popup.  I absolutely LOVE this thing.  Best decision we ever made, and I can't believe we drug our feet this many years to get one.  First of all, my memories of popup campers are clearly 20 years outdated.  It rained 2 inches an hour for at least four straight hours and we had a serious flood outside in the campground.  We stayed completely dry, not a single drop of water came through that camper.  

I love the room inside.  The boys end (shown below) has a queen size bed.  There's a sofa that folds into a bed, and the table also folds into a bed.   You could easily sleep 8 people inside, it's very roomy.  There's also a fridge, a cooktop, an air conditioner, a shower, and a toilet.  

Here's a view from the other direction.  The other bed-end is king sized.  There are privacy curtains to section off the beds if you wanted to.  I personally need to have one eye on Jack at all times, so we didn't have them out this trip.  You can also see the mini bathroom in this picture.  Loved that, too.  

Normally when we go camping, we only cook dinner.  The boys get pop tarts or donuts or whatever easy thing I bring to eat for breakfast.  I really enjoyed cooking on the cooktop this trip, and I made the boys omelets for breakfast.  I loved the fact that I could move the cooktop outside and hook it up outside the camper instead of cooking inside.  Cooking over open flame in a primarily vinyl living area made me super nervous, so I was glad to have the option of cooking outside.

I played a terrible trick on Justice.  He was bugging me.  I mean REALLY bugging me.  It had been raining, and of course being unmedicated and cooped up inside was more than he could bear.  It was flooded so we were stuck.  It rained so hard and so quickly that a ton of water began to pool on top of the awning.  I scooted the picnic table underneath the awning and sent Justice outside to stand on the picnic table and push UPWARDS on the awning from underneath to send the water off over the edge.  Poor little gullible guy was like "SURE, MOM!!" and WOOOOOOSH!!!!!  At least 20 gallons of water came pouring over the top of that awning right down on his head.  Ahhhhh!!!!  It was awesome.  Go me.

The boys spent the rest of the day playing games on my iPad, then we went to dinner.  I'd be lying if I didn't admit the main reason we camped in Louisiana was because of the crawfish.  We lived in New Orleans for three years and I cannot even tell you the numbers of crawfish we ate during those three years.  I fell deeply in love with Cajun food.  It's mostly horrible for you, and even the boiled stuff has enough sodium in it to literally sort of embalm you.  But it's absolutely delicious.  Joe asked a few locals where the best place was, and they sent us deep in the bayou to a Mom and Pop seafood place that's only open three nights a week, and has no menu.  They serve what they were able to fresh catch that day, and that's it.  Plus plenty of Cajun sides and desserts.  This place was fantastic!  This is what it looked like from the outside... don't ever let these kinds of places turn you away, they are typically the BEST places to eat in Louisiana!

And THIS is what we ate!  This is Joe's "plate" (yes, that's really only a tray).  The only thing he ate was boiled seafood.  Three full trays of it.

No picture of my tray.  It wouldn't fit in the camera lens, hahaha.   Fried pickles, okra, the best catfish I've ever eaten, and plenty of étouffée, and bread pudding.  And it goes without saying I ate a ton of crawfish and boiled shrimp.  

This is why I don't give Justice his meds in the summer.  Third plate of food.  Of course he desperately NEEDS three plates of food after running a whirlpool into the kiddie pool that day.

After dinner we went back to the camper and played Headbanz and Go Fish.  What?  Is that a picture of Joe smiling?  I don't know how that snuck in there.  Good thing he's not here to tell me not to post it. :)

The next morning the rain cleared up enough to swim for a few hours and play a few rounds of mini golf.

It started to rain again after they played golf, and we decided that we should pack up and head home a day early because of the forecast.  Another 5-8 inches of rain was scheduled to fall before nightfall and flooding was predicted.  No thanks!  And we hadn't been on the road for more than ten minutes when the bad weather rolled in.  Although we were all disappointed to leave early, we knew that there are plenty more camping opportunities this year!