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--->Chapters: 1 - 2  - by Tina Keely

 

Chapter 3 of:
The Three C's of Camping; Chaos, Calamity, Catastrophe

Most travel stories revolve around the destination. This story is the complete reverse.

It took place on one of those vacations in our early days of camping when the children were young. The trip had been most eventful with the first glimpse of Disneyland, and then on down to San Diego and even over the border into Tijuana. So it wasn’t as though we had not experienced lots of excitement already.

Just two couples had made the trip this time: George and Joy in their trailer with their two Samoyed dogs and five cats, and Dan and I with our four children and our dog.

It was hot and sticky heading back up along Highway 1-1 on the California/ Oregon coast. We still had a week of vacation left, so it was not necessary to rush from campsite to campsite in order to make the drive home. However, it was difficult to find available camping later in the afternoon; it was August and a lot of people were travelling. It did not take us long to realize that the earlier we got off the road each day, the better our chances were of getting good spots.

Our practice was to shop for groceries while going through a town, and then with fresh supplies in hand we would head back out on the highway, find a nice state park where we could walk the nature trails or beaches, cook dinner and have an open campfire at night.

The afternoon in which this story takes place was exceptionally hot, and so at about two o’clock the fellows radioed each other that we should start looking for a campsite early and get out of the traffic. Of course, I was happy to hear this after breaking up numerous quarrels between the two boys and two girls in the back seat of the station wagon. It was my job to keep track of who had the window seats last.

The kids felt they had already been on the holiday and had already seen all the sights they had come to see, and were not too thrilled about the prospects of returning to school next week, so every other minute there was something that required a referee. I could hardly wait to get them out of the car and onto a trail somewhere where they could look for wild bunnies, or along a long beach where they could wade in the surf. So it was with this in mind that we found Carl Washburne State Park, just north of Florence, Oregon.

We pulled into the park and found an assortment of campers ahead of us in a long line that stretched almost back to the highway. There were tenters on bikes with backpacks, cars loaded with camping gear, tent-trailers, campers, trailers and motorhomes all trying to get a spot to rest their weary heads for the night.

After about twenty minutes or so it was our turn. Our leader, George, radioed back that they had two sites available, and he and Dan bailed out of the station wagons to register us. In minutes we were heading down the road into a nicely shaded clump of redwood cedars surrounded by juniper hedges. Each site was very private with a firepit and picnic table and a place for the dogs to get a bit of exercise after being cramped up in the station wagon all day. We thought it was a paradise.

The guys helped each other back in and hook up the water and power, while Joy and I started to get the water boiling for coffee and set up chairs and mats under our awnings. We sent the children for firewood, a good job for them to argue over, and before long we had a beautiful campfire going and hot coffee for everyone. The kids were already in a better frame of mind just from being set free from the vehicle.

Each night a different couple would take on the job of doing the cooking for that night, so no one ended up doing all the chores. Then everyone would pitch in and do the dishes, so that the evening would be free to do whatever we felt like doing. Most of the time we would just sit and talk around the fire, or maybe go for a walk on the beach if the beach was accessible. This night we had decided that dinner would be much better if it was cold because of the heat we had experienced all day, and at our last stop we had purchased potato salad, greens for a regular salad and cold meats. We also found a very good selection of fresh fruit, and had bought all we could store.

Dinner was easy that night, and everyone pitched-in to get the table set. Before we knew it, we were all looking down at well-used dinner plates. Dan and George, who were always looking for something sweet for their pallets, decided that a fresh fruit salad would be wonderful along with some whipped cream.

Joy and I started to give them a bad time – why was it that when we thought we were going to have an easy day with the cooking chores, these two guys find extra work for us to do? A slight controversy occurred in which Dan and George suggested that they could make a better fruit salad than us anyway, and so we in turn suggested that they should go ahead and make it if they were so talented.

So off to our trailer went the two men, leaving us with the kids who were now full of energy once again from being fed. A game of tag amongst the bushes around the campsite had all of their attention and Joy and I revelled in the few minutes of time to ourselves. However, it took us only a few minutes to be thrown back into reality when we looked down at the picnic table and realized that waiting there was our next big chore, THE DISHES.

We got our dishpan out and stacked the dishes ready for washing. Water had been placed on the camp stove, and Joy and I were waiting for it to get hot enough to pour into the dishpan. While we were waiting, we chatted to each other about anything and everything, and then we saw Dan with a smug look on his face. He placed a big bowl of whipped cream on the picnic table to be dabbed on top of the magnificent fruit salad the fellows were concocting inside the trailer. The two food items were partners, as with pie and ice cream, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, syrup and pancakes. One could not be served without the other.

We coyly gave Dan a dig about the time it was taking to put this fruit salad together, and would it be served before breakfast the next morning? He walked back to the trailer to be with his buddy, who he had left cutting up a large piece of watermelon. Joy and I were left to start on the dishes.

We had already put a dab of soap into the dishpan, so when we poured the hot water into the pan we expected to get some suds, but neither of us was ready for what we got. The water in the area was extremely soft and our dishwater started to erupt as the hot water came higher and higher up the sides of the dishpan. The suds were enormous and crept up, up and over the top and down the sides and onto the picnic table.

We could hear Dan laughing from the trailer door where he had seen what had happened. He just shook his head, laughing all the while, and if ever you could read a persons mind, you could read his. He was thinking that we had teased them about how long it was taking to make a fruit salad, and yet neither of us girls could even do the dishes without being able to judge how much soap to put in the pan. (One thing about Dan, his body language always spoke volumes.) Joy and I looked at each other as Dan disappeared into the trailer.

Joy smiled that devilish smile that some people get when you know that they are planning on getting even. She scooped up an armful of soapsuds and began to tip-toe over to the trailer door. As she approached, with me hiding behind her, we could see Dan’s back as he sat cutting up pears at the table. George was there, but, buddy or no buddy, he was not about to let on to Dan what Joy had in store for him.

Dan had a full beard, which he was very proud of. Joy very quietly had gathered up the excess soap suds in her hands and without making a sound she reached around Dan’s neck and placed them very gently into his beard. It took a second for this to register with Dan and he came bounding out of the trailer after her. WAR WAS DECLARED!! He chased her around the campsite while the kids, George and I laughed to see this full-grown man run around the campsite after a full-grown woman while his beard was full of soapsuds.

Finally, he caught her, picked her up like a twig and headed for the dishpan. Joy is very thin, and although she tried to squirm her way of out of his arms, she was laughing so hard that she was no match for him. He got to the dishpan, and just as though he was folding the newspaper, he bent her in half and submerged her butt into the sudsy, overflowing dishpan.

It must have been instinct, but before any of us knew it, Joy had picked up the waiting whipped cream bowl and turned it upside-down on Dan’s head. Dan made a quick exit, knowing full well that Joy was going to continue getting even for the wet jeans that were now hugging her body.

She got out of the dishpan laughing and yelling at Dan that she was going to get him. In turn, if you can picture it, Dan had readied himself for a quick getaway at the edge of the public road, with soapsuds covering his black beard and whipped cream now running down from his head into his black bushy eyebrows, then on down to mingle into the soapsuds of his beard and onto his shoulders. Joy quickly headed for the rest of the dishwater and scooped up a pan full, her jeans soaked all around the crotch area. She headed across the campsite towards Dan, and in turn he headed down the public road a safe distance ahead of her.

We all followed, and several of the campers in sites along the road came out onto the road to get a better look. Could they believe what they were seeing? Are these people crazy? Were they really seeing a man running down the road covered in soapsuds and whipped cream with a crazy lady chasing him with a pan of water?

As Joy neared Dan she realized that she should make her move now, before he got much further ahead of her, and so with a mighty heave she let the water in the pan fly towards him. Both of them were running at this point, and Joy didn’t allow for the speed that she was travelling. The dishwater had been flung with all her strength up into the air where she hoped that it would eventually hit Dan, but instead the water just sat there in mid-air as thought someone had tacked it up there. With Joy still running she managed to run right through the suspended water. She stopped abruptly, mostly from the shock of the water hitting her in the face, where it was not supposed to be at all. How come it did not hit Dan as intended? Joy’s glasses were covered with soapsuds and she had to in fact take them off in order to clear the lens enough to make her way, empty pan in hand, back to the campsite.

It was several minutes before Dan ventured back to the clearing, still looking hilarious. The rest of us were still holding our aching sides with laughter, the two of them looked so funny. Dan grabbed his soap caddy and a towel and headed for the men’s showers and Joy grabbed her soap caddy and towel and headed for the women’s showers. George and I stood in the clearing alone, the kids once again had disappeared amongst the redwoods. Looked like we had inherited dish detail.

About ten o’clock that evening, everyone met at the campfire. The dishes were done, the campsite was cleaned up, the kids were in pyjamas and ready for bed, and Joy and Dan were both sporting fresh clean outfits. We reminisced about the fun of the afternoon, laughing again at the impression we remembered vividly of the two of them running down the road. Joy and I brought out the magnificent fruit salad that the two fellows had concocted at the dinner hour and everyone had a bowl full. It was the best fruit salad we had ever tasted, not because the boys were wonderful chefs, but because of the memories that we would have about it’s making for the rest of our lives. Everyone took their first spoonful of it and decided how wonderful it was even without the whipped cream.




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