Again, I promised my kids rivers and lakes on this trip, and I am doing my best to deliver on that. This campground is a county campground, but like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It is a jungle forrest of pine and deciduous trees, vines, all sorts of cool bugs, worms, and frogs, a nearly-cared-for lake, scooter trails, security, coded gates that close at 8:00pm, noise rules, a guard shack, rugged camp sites large enough to avoid annoying one’s neighbor with things like screaming babies and untamed children. A nice, quiet couple had given us their blow-up lounge floaties last night, and the kids were desperate to try them. The lake opened for swimming at noon. The kids woke at 9:00. We had 3 hours to kill. We are in the middle of nowhere in the South, and I thought that surely there would be a little breakfast place closish where we could experience some culture, but no.
Apparently, it’s a college town, so chain restaurants are the thing, and lame ones, at that! So we settled foe some Starbucks drive-through and Waffle House. And boy, oh, boy, did we get some culture there! There was a skinhead wearing a wife beater sitting at a table with a nice looking family with a baby, two friends sitting at another table, one with hair exactly like The little Bird’s, and that got me all excited, a couple that ate at Waffle House daily, it seemed, from their precise orders, familiarity with obscure menu substitutions, and the great abundance of flesh on their bodies and all kinds of other people. We really stood out in the place, and we got weird looks, but we smiled at people, and no fewer than three tables of people came up to us to chat and inspect with happy interest the make-up of my family. Everyone is very curious and nice here so far!
But the food at Waffle House is the kind only junk-food-deprived children can appreciate.
We still had some time to kill, so we ran to the store for some supplies, and Bunny Boo kept exclaiming loudly, “That person is dressed like the Bird and The Screamer!” It took me a while to realize that she was pointing out all the black people! It has been very exciting for all of them to realize that the Bird and The Screamer are pretty normal looking. Just not where we live.
We finally made it to the lake to swim, and there we stayed for the next 5 hours.
I even got The Screamer to play and splash without me holding onto him for dear life! The most enlightening moment of the day was overhearing the phone conversation of a large, loud man with the perfect nasal twang.
“What was that? He got a nail in his eye?…Naw, he don’t need no doctor unless it gets red. Then they get a drill an’ drill out his eye where the rust be…well I done got a rusty eye once, an’ so I know how they do it. It’s a teeny drill an’ they just drill it out like that….you just put those potato drops in there an’ cover it with a potato and some ice. That’ll help it. But he don’t need no doctor unless it gets red and runny.”
Hey, good to know. Potato juice cures a nail in the eye. And if it doesn’t, the doctor can fix it up nice with a few power tool maneuvers.
Moms here are hilarious. I will never again think that I yell at my kids a lot. These women don’t STOP yelling at their kids! Like screeching at them at the top of their voices! It doesn’t seem that they are angry, just in a constant state of annoyance. Bunny Boo walks around with her fingers in her ears.
Well, the kids had so much fun, and I didn’t interfere for the entire 5 hours. Upon arriving, I immediately noticed that all the white folks were at one end of the swimming area, and all the black folks were at the other end. It was pretty interesting. But of course my kids had no clue, and they gathered up kids from all over the lake, didn’t take no for an answer, and within an hour had a rousing game of Battleship going. Even the dads joined in from time to time. It made me so happy to see everyone swirling around until everyone was everywhere! My kids were crazy. The game consisted of the free floaties given to us last night, and 2 teams. The goal was not to take the other team’s boat, but to overturn it, and then splash one another into surrender. There were no restrictions. There were big kids and little kids on both teams, and they were evenly matched. It was insane. The lifeguard eventually gave up blowing her whistle and just shook her head at the whole safety disaster.
While the big kids destroyed one another in epic battle, The Screamer and I sat on the grass in the shade, and I taught him to fetch things. His diaper was all water logged, so it took it off, but was way too lazy to go get another from the car, so he went diaperless. And then he pooped an enormous poop. It crossed my mind that I could just leave it like a dog poo, and then I remembered that it is a pet-free park! Bah! So I cleaned up baby turds while he giggled away and fetched freshwater shells out of the grass. He’s pretty cute, but his poops are monster sized!
When it was time to go, a boy about 12 came up to me and asked it The Lion is my kid. Yes. Wow, he’s a tough, wild kid! I asked it he was mean, and he said no, just wild and hard to beat! The Bird ran up then, and the kid looked really confused. Is she your kid, too? Yep. He almost keeled over. What do you do with them? I sic ’em on large groups of strong kids to beat out their energy. He was astonished. Where did they come from? California. That’s how we make them out there: wild and tough. Heehee. He was such a cool kid! I later found out that he was on The Lion’s team, and he was their star marine. So much fun.
Judah thought this crow sitting next to the water was pretty neat.
We came back to our site and built a fire, roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, and sent the girls to shower in a civilized way, but The Lion wanted a bath like The Screamer – out in the open forest from a bottle of cold water. So he got it. Everyone is clean and asleep, and I’m feeling like a super mom….until I realize it’s just the 4 shots of espresso from my white mocha this morning. That stuff can make anyone a super star!
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