My family went camping this last week. We were surprised to realize that so many campgrounds take reservations these days. We hadn't bothered to make reservations, hoping to get one of the fifteen walk-up spots at our chosen place. We figured getting there at 2pm on a Wednesday, we'd have a pretty good shot at something ... but we were wrong.
Now that we're home and everyone I know is posting their camping pictures on Facebook, I'm thinking we might have just picked the wrong weekend. Next year, though, we will be reserving our spot a couple months in advance!
We did end up with a spot - a reservation spot that had two days free. We had to cut our trip short by a day, but in the end, it poured down on us anyway. Still, it was a lot of fun, and we'll be at it again next year.
In honor of learning a lot this week, our prompt is: Camping
Enjoy!
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My response:
"A snipe hunt?" I raised my eyebrows and gave Alyssa a flat look. "Right."
She rolled her eyes dramatically. "Yes! A snipe hunt. You have to come." In other words, even if you don't believe a word coming out of my mouth, you will still come.
I sighed and turned to Callie. She shook her head slowly. "This is stupid."
Alyssa frowned. "Go get your pillowcases. Now."
I shot a look towards the cooking fire, where the leaders sat in their camp chairs. Alyssa and the other junior leaders moved through camp, rousing all the first years and regaling them with the stories of the snipe we were going to catch. The leaders were supposed to enforce curfew, and they'd been strict about it the first two nights. But the junior leaders were being anything but discreet, and the adults made it clear they weren't going to intervene.
I wondered if I would be daft enough to believe the tale if I hadn't already been warned off by Alice, my big sister. She was a third year, and stashed away in her tent already with her friends.
I sighed again as Callie and I went to get our pillowcases. Then Alyssa led us into the forest to a little clearing where the other first years were gathered. We listened to an exaggerated tale of snipe and how to catch them, ending with how they turn into candy bars when light hits them (why the forest floor isn't speckled with candy bars every morning wasn't explained). I leaned against a tree, careful to avoid the pine sap. Callie sat down and cradled her head in her hands. When the rest of the first years scattered, clicking and chirping, waving toilet paper and fingers rubbed in toothpaste and looking like they'd escaped the insane asylum, Callie and I stayed put. I sunk down onto a pile of pine needles beside her.
"Do you think they'll let us go back yet?" Callie yawned.
Jennifer popped out of the trees next to us. Her eyes narrowed and she glanced around. "You guys aren't hunting snipes?" Jennifer was on the school dance team with Alice, but she was two years older, so she was at camp as a junior leader already.
Callie rolled her eyes. "You mean we're not dancing around like idiots, so you guys can laugh at us? We're not idiots and this is stupid."
Jennifer frowned. "You have to catch a snipe." She snatched Callie's pillowcase out of her hands. "Oh, look! There's one!" Jennifer crouched and jabbed her hand into a pile of leaves, sweeping the pillowcase down with the other hand. Leaves crumbled as she jabbed a handful into the pillowcase. Then she stood, shook the leaves to the bottom and handed the bag back to Callie, holding the top closed. "There you go."
Callie and I stared as she repeated the charade with my pillowcase. Then she smirked and stalked off.
"This is even dumber than I thought it would be," I said.
"I have pine sap on my pillowcase." Callie moaned.
A few minutes later, the junior leaders gathered us back up and shooed us back through the trees. The adult leaders were blind and deaf as we stalked back into camp. Then they lined us up, and all the junior leaders stood with their flashlights in a circle as the first years shook out their bags, one by one. Callie and I fell back. I turned my pillowcase inside out, shaking the leaves off and using my own flashlight to pick at the larger bits of dirt stuck to it.
Ella came running over, a handful of Halloween sized candy bars in her hands. "My snipe turned into candy!" She exclaimed. Callie and I stared. "What?!"
I pursed my lips, frowned at Callie, and shrugged. "Ella, you know snipes aren't real, right?"
Ella shook her head. "No, they are! I caught one!"
"Did you see it?" Callie asked.
"No ..." Ella frowned. "But I did see the leaves move. There was something there."
"You mean Alyssa's hand in the leaves while she pretended to catch your snipe for you?" I guessed.
Ella's face fell. It had been a good guess that Alyssa'd been the one helping her. "But it turned into candy ..."
I pointed back to the line of girls and the circle of light where the junior leaders stood. "You mean they drop candy when they dump the bags out and tell you the snipe turned into candy."
"Seriously, Ella, have you ever known an animal to turn into a Milky Way before?!" Callie was tired and ready for bed.
"But ..." Ella's lower lip quivered. I felt bad for her, but I also wanted to smack every single one of the first years upside their heads. I couldn't be sure, but I doubted I would have fallen for it, even if Alice hadn't said anything. Still, I was awful glad Alice had told me. I guess big sisters are good for something.
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