Students’ Views

So, to begin this story, I must record in digital print forever the presence of evil forces in the world bent upon one thing- ruining perfectly well planned camping trips. These forces have probably been known as ‘Karma Force Agents’ or such, but do not be fooled, they have personal motives (which are unknown) and their victims are picked at random and not by some deep calculation of good/bad deeds or auras. Yes, this news may come as a shock to some, but I have undeniable proof.

It was Saturday morning, the first full and untainted day of Spring Break, and my friends Naomi and her sister Alyssa were to pick me up at my dorm and we were to then begin our hour and a half trip to San Marcos where Alyssa had reserved a camping spot for us through the camping facilities her school, TX State, owned and managed.

Since the school was completely shut down and there was no cafeteria open, I went home for some grub and my sleeping bag. Afterwards, I remembered I still needed to buy some sun tan lotion. So off to Wal-Mart I go, which is right next to my house, (but twenty minutes away from my dorm). I get some supplies, and then go back to my dorm. I take a shower, make sure all my stuff is ready, and then realize that its almost noon and Naomi and Alyssa still haven’t called me…..

Oh, I must’ve left my phone in the car. -nope- Oh, it’s somewhere in my dorm then. -nope- Crap, I left it in the cart I used at Wal-Mart. -yep-

I drive back and it’s no longer there. I drive back to the dorm, by then stressed OUT! They’re probably calling me and can’t get a hold of me. This camping trip is in danger of not happening. Well, luckily the lady who got my cell called the first person on my contact list, who was still on campus, and Amy was kind enough to let me use her cell. That combined with facebook put me into contact with Naomi and I found out that they had gone to Wal-Mart too, the one in Georgetown, and when they tried to drive away afterwards their vehicle had overheated. Oddly, with some minor calculations, it seems plausible that the moment I left my cell in my cart was probably only moments away from the moment Naomi and Alyssa found out that they had vehicle problems.

So you see, these evil camping-hating forces are organized! BEWARE!!!! They seem to like to stir up their mischief in Wal-Mart parking lots. I didn’t see one, so they can be anything…. or-anyone. (That was deep)

The rest of the trip was amazing:

We drove to San Marcos with the windows down, and it was the most perfect day you could imagine, so we were quickly in a good mood again. When we arrived at TX State we rented out three tubes and tied them to the top of the vehicle and went to our campsite.

We set up our tent and then- to the river!! I changed into my trunks and the girls already had their swim wear on under their clothes so we didn’t take too long. We carried the tubes to a cool looking place, above a water fall. We wanted to tube down it…. and I was dared to go first.

Well, I went down fine. Naomi, though, had a rough time. She got a little banged up. And Alyssa and I laughed a bit. Just a bit. I, however, stopped laughing when Naomi pointed out that we had leeches all over us. AAAHHHHH!!!!!! They were tiny, mind you, but still, there they were, on our skin, our arms, backs, legs, torsos, and it was unacceptable. I made sure to squish each one as I took it off my body. To teach it a lesson. Permanently.

We floated down the river for about an hour, and when we got back to the campsite we just hung out an ate. We first ate the main course, chocolate animal crackers with vanilla icing. For dessert we had Honey Buns, Oatmeal cookies, and Ghardettoes. Yum yum. I love camping.

Then we spent about an hour trying to get a fire started (we originally planned for firewood, but there was a burn ban, so only charcoal could be used, none of us had experience with charcoal, as you could guess). When the little elevated bar-b-q thingy was finally lit we put some bacon on it, and in three hours it was done. We put it on ciabatta bread. It was gooood.

That was pretty much it for the night, we played around and talked, took some funny pictures. Good times. We then went to sleep in the tent.

In the morning we were looking beautiful

:

And then we realized that Texas had done it again, and followed up a perfect day with a cloudy, gray one. So we decided not to stick around or go swimming at the river at TX State. We then spent half the day hanging around San Marcos, looking at stuff, we ate at a place called Which ‘Wich (goood).

That was it, really. It may seem uneventful, but it’s the little things that happen in these trips that make it worthwhile.