Father, so glad You gave us the idea for our neighborhood S’Mores Night. What a joy, to share each other’s lives on a starry night! Will there be s’mores in heaven? Not sure, but OMG, the evening was a teensy taste of friendship we’ll savor with You and Your children. Every. Starry. Night.
My first hayride at age nine in a creaky farm wagon — a 4-H outing — puzzled me. A novelty? No. Tractors prowled in fields surrounding our little Indiana town. My siblings and I rode in the back of a pickup at highway speeds, so burning up country roads at 15 mph didn’t shake me up.
Waving at farmers? Fun, but not extreme entertainment.
So, why did chaperones’ heads swivel as we chugged along? Just because they were responsible for children who had danced around a campfire, waving unfurled metal clothes hangers armed with burning marshmallows. Just because we’d consumed 10 s’mores apiece, why eyeball us like tractor hijackers?
By junior high, though, I’d figured out that mass sugar buzz didn’t cause the adults’ angst. Even clothes-hanger-marshmallow weapons appeared less threatening. The big concern: harvest moons, starry nights and chilly temperatures invited major snuggling.
And more.
Chaperones blackmailed into volunteering wished they’d signed up to dig the school’s new basement instead. But they yelled, “Heads up!” and bravely dug seventh grade babes and their current Numero Unos — generally six inches shorter — out of the hay.
Meanwhile, skinny nerds like me took extreme interest in local soybean crops.
Those popular kids were stupid. Embarrassing.
Lucky dogs.
By high school, few stared at soybean fields, and no one waved at farmers. Our choir performed a wholesome, cheesy song at fall concerts — “Hey, hey, hayride!” Privately, we chuckled. Dumb old people would believe we were equally wholesome.
The old people — aka our parents — didn’t buy it. Later, when our own children reached adolescence, we didn’t, either. Surprisingly, though, hayrides no longer seemed popular.
However, recent years have brought a hayride resurgence. Given helicopter parents and predatory lawyers, are wagons now equipped with car seats and airbags? Or is everyone swathed in Bubble Wrap?
Yet, hayrides have evolved to scary, elaborate levels we 4-Hers couldn’t have imagined. For example, a Maryland “family” attraction offers haunted hayrides in which zombies assail the wagon, even crawl aboard. Also provided: refreshments, bonfires, live bands, plus a haunted hotel, haunted corn maze, and a haunted circus.
Give me the boring version, with only a full moon, crisp fall air, and burning up country roads at 15 mph.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Have you ever gone on a hayride?
O Lord, Thank You for our thoughtful children and their spouses, who together gave us this firepit for Christmas. Maybe they thought we would wait until summer before making s’mores? OMG, You know better.
“You initiated an end-of-the-season campout,” my husband insisted. “To celebrate your completing a novel.”
Crazy. I would never—
Wait. After months in the writers’ cave, I do recall blurting something about an October campout.
Exactly what a weary writer needed — extra laundry. Debates whether to pack heavy coats or light. How could I jam this carrot bag into the cooler? (Though the cheesecake fit fine.)
All for a campout in October, when Mother Nature frequently forgets to take her Prozac.
What word-fogged madness had seized me?
Hubby should have conducted an intervention: “Let’s go to a ritzy hotel where they golf cart you to the hot tub.”
Instead, he gleefully hooked up the camper and condemned me to a weekend in the wilds.
The campground teemed with campers struck with similar insanity, determined to experience one final outdoor inconvenience. Perhaps they’d all written books, too, and succumbed to brain disappearance?
Adults, as well as kids, competed in a never-ending, kamikaze bike race around the campground. For pedestrians on hasty nighttime hikes to restrooms, a headless horseman could strike no terror so profound as that caused by breakneck night riders with glow-in-the-dark decals.
Better to stay by the campfire, especially as temperatures dipped to 39 degrees.
Fall camping does have positives. With no devices or cell phone service, we retired early. Once my foggy mind realized a nighttime noise wasn’t a hair dryer left on, but the camper’s heater, we spent snuggly nights in sleeping bags.
Mornings, we consumed yummy breakfasts with enough cholesterol to supply the state.
No global warming occurred, so we couldn’t swim or kayak. We left bike rides to the kamikaze crazies. But we could hike.
We strolled through gorgeous woods, stopping to admire lakes, trees, and tough little flowers that braved autumn’s temperatures. Unable to translate bird language, we assumed a fervent chorus of welcome. Along with soaring hawks and eagles, even buzzards appeared graceful. We encountered a beaver lodge and a gobbling flock of wild turkeys.
Why, on these jaunts, do we persist in seeking deer? I’ve seen them in neighbors’ yards. Deer devour my tulips and tomatoes, yet we found this park quest entertaining — also part of the insanity.
If hikes cause rubber legs and aching feet, they also inspire the best naps ever taken by humankind.
We found ourselves lingering that last, lovely afternoon, breaking down camp at the last minute.
Arriving at home, we hauled in suitcases. Bags of smoky, dirty clothes. The cooler, with its highly questionable contents.
We recovered our Internet. Tons of emails awaited us. Tons of work.
What madness possessed us to come home?
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Do you like fall campouts?
I, like other clueless new spouses, signed my marriage license without reading the fine print. Later, I discovered I had promised to camp with my husband — for better, for worse — until lightning melted our tent poles or ravenous raccoons starved us out.
After decades of marriage, I now welcome campout vacations.
Or perhaps I’ve numbed to the point I think I like them.
Either way, I’ve learned the Camping Commandments:
“Wait,” you say. “You’ve cited more than ten commandments. Do campers really need that many?”
“Absolutely. We campers are wild by nature. Actually, there are many more commandments than these.”
“More?”
“Go back and read the fine print.”
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What Camping Commandments would you include?