Woman vs Wild
Katydids are pretty but loud
A few of my friends and I decided to float the Guadalupe river in inner tubes. I had done it before but on previous trips I spent the night in a condo – not exactly roughing it. My friend, Meli thought tent camping would be fun. I could do that, I thought to myself. I also convinced myself that both of my boys would love it. We made reservations at a “water only” campsite in the hill country. My oldest son quickly opted out much to my disappointment.
I’ve been camping 3 times in my life. Once in Colorado when I was a kid. About 6 of us slept in a tent. It was cold but fun – what did i know? I was 13.
The 2nd time my family stayed in a cabin at the lake when I was about 16. It was okay from what I remember. Lots of bugs and spiders but I could not recall anything making it a horrible experience.
The 3rd time, I was married to my first husband, so I had to have been at least 20 years old. We camped in a tent. For some reason or another, I don’t remember much about this trip other than there being a million baby frogs everywhere.
Even though I don’t really “do” outside, or bugs, I was determined to be a good sport. I borrowed most of my camping gear. My only purchases were a battery operated fan and an air mattress. That fan turned out to be the most coveted item on the trip.
Once we passed the horrendous rush hour traffic in Austin, the drive was pleasurable. As we drove into Boerne I was so glad that I had thrown all caution to the wind. Hill Country is breathtakingly beautiful.
We got there with just enough daylight to set up our tents. As we got out of the car, the sound of the katydids singing was remarkable (remarkably loud – more on that later) I had borrowed a 3 man tent for me, Spunky and Cameron, a 13 year old cousin of ours. My baby sister, and her hubby shared a tent with a friend, Ursula, while my nephew, Kyle had his own tent.
We started a campfire and relaxed under the stars. We made plans to get up early and head for the river. Boy those katydids were really loud…
We all retired for the night. I don’ t think I’ve mentioned that I have claustrophobia, have I? I tried to relax but could not. Absolutely, positively could not. I took 1/2 of a Xanax. Thank God I had remembered to bring them.
Having drank a lot of water the night before (remember is it summertime in Texas) I woke up right before dawn and needed to hit the bathrooms. Lucky for us the state parks don’t have port-a-potties, they have actual tiled bathrooms with showers. I walked to the bathroom alone – I was a little scared but I had to go! When i got back to the campsite everyone was still asleep. So I sat a lawn chair and fell asleep. That was the last time I got any decent sleep that weekend.
A couple of hours later the group woke up and we prepared breakfast then headed to the water. We rented tubes and waited for a shuttle van to drive us up river. Our shuttle drives up and its a 15 passenger van. There were about 21 people in line.
They crammed us into this unair conditioned van. I ended up in 2nd to the last row next to the window – the kind of window that does not open. In about 2 minutes after I sat down, my phobia reared its ugly head. I thought to myself, “breathe, breathe, find your center, find your center, you can do this, you can do this.” No. I. Couldn’t. I threw a kid off of my lap and climbed over my sister and our friend and who knows who all else and jumped out of the van.
My friends yelled at me, “what are you doing? get back in.” I did not care if i had to stay at the camp site all day in the sweltering heat. There was NO WAY i was getting back in that van. One of the other passengers took pity on me and made her son give me the front seat. I was MORTIFIED. Her son was a sweetheart about it, but it still did not ease the sting of embarrassment.
The driver finally climbed in after securing all of the tubes in the trailer. He looked at me and said, “Hey! What happened? How’d you get up here?!” My hand was half covering my face and I hissed at him, “I don’t want to talk about it, just shut up and drive.” He grinned at me and we were off.
It was so hot! I was really feeling guilty about my family and my kid sitting in the back of that van – I started to freak out again but by then we were on the road and the wind was blowing through the vehicle.
To Be Continued…
oh dang when are you going to post the rest?? Did you go to the lake there? its beautiful it looks like a beach in the tropics, blue blue water. I have a cousin the lives there and she is on a hill, so pretty