The Camping Bug

For about a year now, I have been trying to go camping with Steve, but it has never worked out with my work schedule and his school demands. But for memorial weekend the stars had seemed to align for us. I was out of school and he had a three day weekend. So I had the bright idea to take him to the Wichita Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma. I say bright idea because I was naive enough to think that we would be able to find a camping spot.

After Steve got off work on Friday, we drove 2 and a half hours to find out that they were full. lol. We just had to laugh at ourselves. We tried a couple others close by, and they were full too. So, we drove back to Stillwater.

The next day, we tried a park a few miles outside of Stillwater. To our luck we found the perfect spot right on the lake, surrounded by trees. After we brought all of our stuff down the hill from our car, a group of college kids appeared at the top of the hill with literally six unleashed dogs. The dogs ran down the hill causing Rusty to go crazy, and they stood there staring at us until I said, "Hi, we already got this spot approved." Then they proceeded to ask us if we would switch them...I couldn't believe it. I told them no, and that I was sorry but we liked our spot. Little did I know at the time, but we would have been much better off if we had switched.

Before Steve and I could blink, they set up camp on the hill top. I thought that it wouldn't be that big of a deal at first, but they spent all day walking through our campsite with their unleashed dogs to get to the lake. Needless to say, we lost our easy access to the lake. So Steve and I decided to take Rusty on a nature walk. When we returned, the party crashers were still there...and the next morning bright and early they were back.

I turned to Steve and said that I couldn't take it anymore. So we left. We joked on the way back of all the things we could have gotten done if we hadn't gone camping...It is a funny story now and I guess a good one to tell the grandkids someday. Steve is glad that my desire to go camping has been satisfied for now anyway.