Camp it up!

Ahhhhh. Camping.

 Our four day camping trip to the ocean was this last week. Unfortunately, things didn't go quite as planned and we ended up coming home after 24 hours. The ocean is only 2 1/2 hours away so it's not too big a deal, but still kinda sucked packing up all that stuff for 4 days to come home after 24 hours.
There was a statewide burn ban in effect so spending four days at the ocean where the temps can change drastically in a matter of hours weighed pretty heavily on my mind. I packed about every sweater and warm pants I could find AND threw in my ski jacket for good measure. THIS girl was NOT going to be cold. Crabby maybe, but not cold.  And, we were off!

 We got the camp site ready to go. The weather was beautiful and warm. So far...

The first ocean visit of the camping trip.

 This is the trail we took up to the beach.

  I love the beach. I could never get tired of looking at it.

This is a tradition we've started with this family. Our friend is divorced with six little kiddies and one of the best Dad's I know. We started camping every year in August but this year, we thought we would stay a bit longer. Four days instead of the three. We wanted to have two full days at the beach. We were really bummed that the fire ban was on  but we planned on making the best of it and I promised  not be too big of a grump.
Campsite was set up but come evening, mosquito's the size of my fist, (not really)  proceeded to try and suck every drop of blood from each one of us. Even with bug repellant. I had all open skin covered but the little bastards STILL found a way to poke through my jeans. Nasty little things.

We ended up going to bed early because of the mosquito's. And guess what?  I froze all night. Pft.

The next morning, bright and squirrelly, a chipmunk and a couple crows decided to have a shouting contest right above our tent. I could just imagine what they were saying to each other, "You shut up!..."NO YOU shut up!"  And the peace maker I am, I decided to break up the fight. I zipped out of my tent like a mother that had just about enough and I stomped over to that chipmunk and crow and told them, "NO...YOU shut up!"  The crow took off and proceeded to yell at both of us from a distance and the chipmunk started chattering at me!. By this time everyone was up and telling that little chipmunk to buzz off.

Breakfast got started and all was well. During breakfast, one of the girls came and asked me about a bite she had on her leg. It was by her knee and it looked pretty red and swollen. She told me it didn't itch, it just hurt and I told her to show her Dad and we both agreed we would watch it real close.
The day was a beautiful day and we spent the whole of it down at the beach. I got a nice burn on my face but since I was wearing sunglasses the whole day I looked a bit like Zorro. My little friend's "bite" was getting a bit worse and swelling up a bit more. Her Dad and I  both thought she was possibly bitten by a spider since it hurt but didn't itch and she had been playing in the tall grass. There were spiders pretty much everywhere. We continued to watch it and thought if she came down with a fever we would get her to a hospital.

We had a lot of fun on the beach that day. The kids boogie boarded and body surfed.

They made a sand thingy....

Found lots of sand dollars. This beach was loaded with them.

gratuitous shot of my foot....your welcome. 

 When we got back to the campsite around 5:00 for dinner you could tell my little friend wasn't feeling so hot. We ate and settled in but my little friend was getting worse. She had laid down on the bench by her dad  and when I felt her forehead, she felt cool. Within about 15 minutes of that, she got up and told her dad she felt like she was going to throw up and she had suddenly spiked a fever. Things got moving quickly after that. He loaded her up and he drove around trying to find a fire house and an EMT. Small towns like we were camping by, run a lot different then big towns. Everyone goes home at 5:00. The ranger station didn't have anyone there and he couldn't find a fire house. My friend found a guy at a clinic on his way out and he told him we needed go into the bigger town to get her help, about 15 miles out.  Our friend came back to the camp site and decided he needed to pack up and head home so he could get her to a hospital if need be. At this time, she seemed to be feeling a bit better so he got some water down her and they started packing up. We didn't want to stay by ourselves with no fire and mosquito's the size of a house, so we packed up as well. It was about 8 PM at this time and we rolled out at 8:30. Got home at around 11Pm.

My little friend's fever had broken by the time we all got home and she slept through the night. Her Dad took her to the Dr. the next day and they said she had a bacterial infection and put her on antibiotics. They said she must have gotten poked or scratched in that area and it got infected. No spider bite and she's back to normal.
Even though we were only there a few hours, we had a good time. *whispers* Don't tell anyone, but I wasn't too upset about coming home cause this is how I feel about it......

 Hope you had a great weekend!