Decompression … please?

We are home from camping. We had a great time. We built fires. I built fires. I built awesome fires. I think I have a knack for it. We hiked – far, long, high, fast.

But we forgot our f’ing cameras. Upsetting.  No matter, I’ll look up the good stuff on the internet to tell my camping-story.

Beloved left me as planned, and I was more than fine. There were coyotes or something yipping and yapping in the distance, but my thinking-brain took over my irrational-brain, and I was able to use the information that they were at least 15 miles away to feel safe.

This is where we hiked to on Monday, with Beloved:

Then here:

It was a lot of fun, with minimal whining – and that bit was partly understandable, considering we skipped lunch – accidentally.

We have lists of things to do differently next time.  One of them is to bring trail mix and/or power bars, even when we think we’re going for a “short walk.”  Since we now know that a “short walk” can turn into a 4 hour, 8.5 mile hike.

This is the coffee house the girls and I walked to, without Beloved, on Tuesday:

This is the game we played for hours after visiting, then abandoning, due to cold, the swimming hole:

(Yes, we have the classic version.)

Today, we went on this slide:

Then we went to Manchester, where we had fantastic sandwiches.  I wanted a Rueben, and had one in mind that I had when I was 11 … I know the restaurant has been out of business for 10 years at least, but we went to Manchester anyway.  We found another restaurant, and I chose a different sandwich:  A Pot Roast Cheddar Melt.  Huh?  Oh, just the best sandwich EVER.  Like, in the entire world.  Holy crap.  I mean, wow.

Then we went to a bookstore that we love.   We bought a new game.  Because we love games.  Then, I found a bag:

I really wanted it.  The girls told me I have too many, and Beloved said only if I throw away another one.  😦  But then I visited it again, and this time, the girls covered my eyes.  Then I memorized the name of it, and looked it up when I got home.  He he he.

It is not fun to be Bleeding to Death while camping.  It’s one thing to deal with the woes of womanhood at home, or in the civilized world, but when it requires schlepping out of a teeny tiny tent at 3 a.m. in the morning when it’s probably 38 degrees outside … it pretty much sucks.

Today’s travel felt hard.  We started the day with bickering girls, and while I think Beloved and I handled things well.  And sort of, so did the girls, with future plans and coping mechanism and such – not easy to come up with while parked on the side of VT Highway 30 with the threat of NO ALPINE SLIDE hanging over your head.  Despite it going “okay” – it resulted in my starting my day drained.  Who wants to start their day drained?  After already being tired because of 3 a.m. bathroom runs?

Hint:  Not Zuska.

Also draining — e-mails from ex-husband insisting that he be charged scholarship prices for childcare expenses, because after all, he didn’t get a raise.  This, my dears, requires a separate post.  And I’m not sure that I have the energy for that negativity-fest tonight.

Because tomorrow, we’re going to a fair with friends, having dinner at a friend’s, and trying to find time before hand to make plans with other friends for a trip to the beach on Friday.

Saturday, the whirlwind that is my parents returns to town, and I give up their car.

I think that will feel good.  I will stop feeling like I must squeeze a million activities into this free-car-window (which is not the same as a “free-gas-window” – lemme tell you!)

I thought, back on Tuesday or Wednesday when we first had the car, that it would be hard to give it up when my parents came to pick it up.  Now I just want to be done with it.  It keeps making all these demands of me.  “Use me to go here!” and then “Use me to go there!” and then, “Hey! I’m still here, in the parking lot!  Use me!  Use me!”

Leave me alone, car!  Leave me alone!!