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The second annual Eta camping trip was Victoria Day weekend, Friday May 18 to Monday May 21, 2001. We went to Chilliwack Lake (same place as last year).
...The Tale of the Second Annual AWE 'n Friends Camping Trip
This year we tried to be more organized and put information on the website, which was a good thing since there was a last minute change of campsites and that would have been a lot of people to call! We had a communications network going! Andrew-man called Donna, who called Rhonda (webmaster) and also recorded a superlong message on her cell.
Erica, Donna and Hugh arrived at sites #6 and 7 (double site) to find Andrew-man sitting all by his lonesome (although enjoying a "deluxe" armchair). For those of you who read the soggy tent story from last year, you'll understand why we started setting up shelter right away. Hugh began by setting up a tarp for his tent, while Erica drew a little "Circle of Love" and wrote E+B in it, just to make sure no tents got too close to hers. Andrew-man somehow changed the writing in the circle, effectively marrying them in "a quick and inexpensive ceremony". We borrowed this really cool ladder from some other site and Hugh (after some (that means a lot) of re-arranging) had set up two orange tarps over his tent and the "Circle of Love". It was decided that this bright orange colour coding meant "adults only". (as a sidenote, one of the orange tarps was the one Donna brought on Pledge night, but since it was placed honey side up it was finally cleaned off!).
Meanwhile, over at the picnic table, Erica and Andrew-man had propped up a holy (not religious, but full of holes) tarp with metal poles. Unfortunately, these poles were a little too pointy at the top and kept stabbing through the tarps. The solution? Put beer cans over the poles! But where would we find those.?
We paid for the sites and most of us thought the guy who was giving change was pretty creepy looking. I think the word was "shifty". We were told that we were allowed one car per site, and for an extra one it was $6 per night per site! There were two cars there and we told the guy that there were more people coming, at which time he told us it would be an extra $6/night for the cars. We said "ok" but didn't offer to pay any more money. Our extra guests were obviously flying in. Well, we never had to pay that because whenever we saw a campground official some people would have a sudden burning need to go take a drive down to the lake.
Pretty soon another car showed up with Chris (aka Measle the Weasel), Rhonda and Robin. Bryan was supposed to show up at 8, and Erica was keeping us very aware of the fact by maintaining a "4minutes and 28 seconds until Bryan" type of count-down. When he didn't show up exactly on time, she sang us this song she wrote about how she was going to make his life a misery. When he finally arrived, Erica jumped up and they took a cozy walk around the outhouses.
This year there were two extremely comfy chairs, one of which had a cool spitz/beer/whatever holder. We had dinner (Measle had some GOOD sausages. they were big and juicy and.) and only lost one burger to the flames (Hugh was pretty drunk by then, but on Vodka, not rum; and since no one could call him Rummy, I think Robin came up with Anti-Rummy). We met mini-Andrew-man, who was about two years old. He was next door and kept escaping from his campsite. We kept an eye on where he ran off to and Robin made a new friend.
As it got dark, out came the Borg man. Andrew-man with his weird maglight-head-mount was trying to assimilate us all! What did we do all night around the campfire? Drank and were merry. Hugh was very very merry. Robin the Riddler emerged with EngFizz trivia, which was only slightly confused. (How can you sort ball bearings with only $2 of supplies? No, $5. well, no more than $15. They differ by nanometers, no, wait, let's say micrometers. And it involves a ramp. well, very close to a ramp at least!) When we went to bed we were all wondering why we spent all that time putting up tarps.
Holy rain! It was a good thing we put those tarps up! It started around 2-3am?? And it was loud! Everyone woke up late, and then the stove wouldn't start. While Bryan and Andrew-man (along with their bread-monkey (that funky monkey) assistant Robin) were working on the French toast (with bryan-the-cook making some lovely spoon music), Hugh was heating a pot on his little barbeque (which made a very impressive big POOF) and everyone got fed. (mmmmm. ravioli.) Another tarp was put up over the fire for a while, and every time the wind blew the tarps would lift and the poles would fall. The wind and the rain created many new positions, including fire-monkeys and pole-monkeys who ran to their positions whenever they sensed a big gust.
The rain cleared up a lot and soon we saw sun with just a few light periods of rain here and there. Donna opened up a 2 pound bag of spitz and settled into a comfy chair to read and relax.
Trying not to be swayed by lazy Donna, Erica, Bryan, Chris, Andrew-man and Robin went for a hike down to the lake. Apparently Robin knew where the creek was that fed into the lake. A typical conversation would go like this: "Robin, are we almost there?", "Yup, just around the corner, can't you hear it?", "Robin, are we almost there now?", "I swear, just around this corner, can't you hear it?", "Robin, do you know where you're going?", "Yes, just around this corner.", "Robin, you don't know where you're going", "Yes, I do, can't you hear it?", "For God's Sake Robin, where's the *#$#*$&# cre-----", "Here's the creek!". The lake was nice though, there's nothing like spending an hour of your day skipping (or trying) to skip rocks. Very therapeutic, especially when you throw the really big ones and they splash Robin who is standing at the end of the log recovering from the "very short" hike to the creek. Then of course it started raining again, and we headed back. What can you do?
After returning to the site and a few drinks to warm us up, determined not to be swayed by Donna's perpetual laziness, Erica, Bryan, Chris, Robin, Andrew-man and Rhonda set off once again for the traditional game of Ultimate. Unfortunately, we sucked (funny how the frisbee flies so fast when you've had a few drinks..), so we started up a game of tippit. Very fun. All I can say is that you've gotta give it to the solid five.
They came back and Donna was still reading. Measel had set up his hammock, but it touched the ground when most people sat on it and the two trees it was attached to were pretty small and swayed precariously if say, someone (Donna) sat in the hammock and pretended it was a swing and asked people to push her. We took down the tarp over the fire but left it attached to the trees in case it had to go up again. It looked like we made giant blue screen to hide us from our neighbours.
After dinner, just as Bryan and Erica were about to take off, (Erica had to coach early Sunday morning so she was spending Saturday night in Vancouver and coming back on Sunday) Orifice, Big Daddy and Jen drove up. We were thinking they decided not to come because of the rain we saw that morning. While Chad set up a giant 1000 person tent, Orifice got out his Mandarin vodka and Jen began sipping from her bottle of Bella Rosa (?) strawberry tequila drink thing.
It was another fun night of drinking by the campfire. Chad (Big Daddy!) tried to usurp Robin's position with his "what can go up a chimney down but not down a chimney up?" riddle. Soon after drinking some pamplemousse and vodka, Robin led us all through little kid songs that she teaches to Brownies. We were all jumping around and having fun. we peeled bananas (peel, bananas, peel peel bananas!) and saw our first appearance of Patricia-the-stripper from Measel. We made a disco bathroom and sang Dancing Queen really loud. ("Oh God. I am SO smashed" - Jen). We got tired soon but Big Daddy and Orifice stayed up pretty late.
We woke up to gorgeous sun. Unfortunately, some of us weren't feeling so gorgeous. Robin was "feeling a bit ill" and didn't quite make it to the outhouse in time. she threw up in the woods, near the wood pile. and maybe once in the actual outhouse. What was really funny was that the kids she had made friends with were all asking "Robin, why are you sick? What's the matter? Are you okay?" Chris, Andrew-man, Hugh and Jen decided to go on a hike. Robin wasn't well enough to go anywhere, and Donna just wanted to sit in her chair all day. Orifice (the wood monkey) spent the entire morning chopping wood and made a huge pile of it. Chad didn't emerge from his tent/cave until well after noon.
Erica and Bryan came back after lunch around when Chad, Steve and Jen were leaving. Erica was sun-tanning for a bit but poor Rhonda had to stay in the shade or she'd get burned. Chris, Andrew, Erica and Robin and Bryan braved the lake again. They still couldn't convince Donna to leave her chair, maybe next year. This time they were equipped with spitz and chairs. We probably looked pretty funny all in a row, looking at thewater, eating spitz and occasionally talking about something.
Campfire that evening was pretty relaxing. Patricia the stripper made another appearance, but only after much coaxing and some collaboration on the part of Measel and Andrew-man. We ate lots of s'mores and sang LOTS of songs; you name it, Bryan probably knew it. There were also some repeated favourites from the night before. There was an appearance of Sex Monkey (A very yummy drink creation of Chris and Bryan, careful, 'cause it gets excited).
Donna was tired and went to bed early, it just have been all that sitting in the chair in the sun and reading and eating spitz for the entire day. (Hey, that is a lot of stuff to do at once!). Hugh decided to build a leaning tower of fire with the remaining wood. You know what they say about guys who like big fires...Well, I guess only Donna would know that. And that was the end of our last night!
It was another bright warm sunny morning. We just packed everything (even got the tarps down without the ladder) up and got out of there. It was the end to another successful AWE 'n friends camping trip. (Maybe next time the AWE's will actually outnumber the friends!)
Next year we'll have to remember to bring Britney! We did have country music and our own singing, but the site next door (the neighbours with mini-andrew-man left and we got new neighbours) were blasting something trying to drown us out.
We'll also have to drink more. Lots more. I think we didn't drink as much because ONE-Clarissa wasn't there to act all crazy and spur others on to join her and TWO we had no locals to compete with this year ("how many empties do they have? Only that? We can beat that!!"). I suppose we could have competed with that two-year old kid.
Rules - we went a little overboard and kept making up rules and I the end I think we got to number twelve? I do remember that rule zero was "no pushing people in the fire" to go with rule one which was "no falling in the fire". and rule negative one was "no breaking Donna's chairs" which was upheld the whole trip.
Marshmallow and baileys - you know when you roast a marshmallow just so that you can pull off the roasted part and it forms a little cup? Have you ever tried putting Bailey's into that cup? The marshmallow may be a little leaky, but it is Deeee-licious.
One last note: "This is the song that never ends..."
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