Adventures with Ivory: Camping with Mommy

My mommy’s side of the family goes camping every Labor Day and Memorial Day weekend at Lazy Days campgrounds.  Just going along is an adventure – ask Munchkinhead who won’t do it anymore!

This Labor Day, our group had roughly 2 dozen people in it; aunts, cousins, uncles, children, friends and some dogs.  The theme was Olympics so we had some organized games on top of the regular foolishness.  Mommy and I were partners for a three-legged race and a bag race.  We didn’t win, but we also didn’t fall down or pee our pants like some people.

There’s a small beach on a small lake at the campgrounds.  Somehow, I got myself elected to take all of the kids, 7 of them ranging in age from 4 to 10, to the beach.  That was interesting.  I’m like the only person on the camping trip who doesn’t have kids or isn’t regularly around children.  We had fun.  The kids seemed to appreciate that I was quite content to sit on the beach as long as they wanted to play in the sand and water.  Eventually, some other adults came down, including Mommy who was running away from a game of Cards Against Humanity at the campsite.  (That game is not Mommy-proof.)

We had campfires every night and Mommy and I cooked all our meals over our fire, Zambian style on a tripod of bricks.  For Saturday night’s group dinner, I attempted to make nsima and peanut sauce cisyu with eggs.  People were very polite about trying it, but I don’t think anyone actually liked it. – With the Olympic theme, we were supposed to cook something from our nationality.  Since the family’s all Polish, I thought I’d make Zambian food.

The best part of the weekend was when Mommy and I rented a tandem and attempted to toodle around on a bicycle built for two.  We did pretty well except for that one ditch.