So Karen and I and our two boys take our usual mid-July camping trip in eastern Ohio, Tappan Lake to be exact. I grew up there so it's a kind of touchstone. We went as always with Connie and Wayne and their sons as we've been doing for many years. In every year past we have been blessed with some beautiful weather and very few days of anything else. This year Mother Nature decided it was time to pay the piper.

We had one really great day of weather and the other nine were a mixed bag of rain, oppressive humidity, more rain, more oppressive humidity, and finally some additional rain with additional oppressive humidity. We set up in a thunderstorm and when we left the sun was trying hard to draw even more humidity up out of the mud.

The trailer is wet and damp and the contents are wet and damp or covered in varying depths of mud. Today I sorted clothes to be washed and had whites with mud, light colors with mud, towels with mud........you get the idea. On the plus side, Karen and Connie got in one glorious day over on the beach as well as several good afternoons. The kids, ranging in age between 11 and 18, all enjoyed themselves and the campsite was great, except for the ... (yeah, you got it) ... mud.

On the minus side, outside of the weather and the mud, Wayne and I had plans to go to three races at short tracks within 50 miles of camp and we went 0 for 3 because of the weather.   Had the tracks swapped schedules around, at least 2 and probably all 3 would have run. I now have a better understanding of "scattered" and "isolated" thunderstorms. But we did find a dynamite restaurant in an unlikely place which didn't substitute for racing but you have to take what you get. I was also smart enough to leave all guitars at home for a change and it was the best decision I made.

So we return home and find the house has no power........Some real rocket scientist, a genius type, screwed up on the total amount due since there was a previous unlogged payment and the electric company turned the power off. I got on the horn and raised a ruckus and sure enough I got the idiot who screwed up to admit it!!! The fact that I was the idiot only served to depress me further. We spent the night in a Hampton Inn and returned home today to a house that reeked of dead food in the freezer and the fridge..............**sigh**...............We also spent the day cleaning out said fridge, freezer, and house, and crying over lost legs of lamb, beef tenderloins, pork tenderloins, venison cuts, chops and steaks, 9 quarts of my homemade from tomatos pasta sauce, 30 pounds of burger, and a mountain of junk food snacks snd TV dinners for the kids.

But we had a great time anyway........Good friends, great meals, wonderful campfires (even in the rain), and probably more stories than from the past five years combined...............but I'm glad to be back!

Spaw