Tuesday, May7, 2013

ALLY SPRINGS MISSOURI

If I could somehow blog via thought process, this whole thing would be a lot more interesting. Yesterday would have gone something like this:

6am: "It's bloody cold in here. Who's going to get up and start the fire? Oh right, wet campsite= no fire." ….. quickly falls back to sleep.

7am: Sleep

8am: opening the tent , "This is why I came! How lovely!" I do love opening the tent and being the first one awake. Sometimes it feels as if I'm the only one awake on the planet and creation and I are sharing some secret together. 

The bathroom/shower room is heated. Bliss

By 9 we were down the street to little cafe (totally a cop out on a camp breakfast, but hater's gonna hate) 

11am: on the road and so very happy. "We're doing this! Really!!"

Somewhere around noon, we crossed the Mighty Mississippi. More important than that, though, was our entrance into Missouri  One more scratch on my Bucket List. Go on, laugh. But in reality, many of you have locations on your bucket list. Paris. Rome. Greece. India. Alaska.    Well, mine just happened to be Missouri. 

You see, a life time ago, before things were too very bad, and I still had dreams, Andrew and I made plans to move here. It was going to be the end of all that was bad and the beginning of everything that was good. We were going to start a homestead of sorts. Chickens, eggs, milk, veg, everything. WE never made it though. One dream changed into another and I never made it here.  I spent hours looking over maps and real-estate listings. I can tell you the names of most of the small towns in the Ozarks and where they are located. WHat major sources of tourism there are. I wanted to see the Ozarks.

And for the first time ever yesterday, I did. One of the most bitter sweet things I've done in 8 months.

I've been asked, "How can you love a monster like that?" Well, the complete truth is, I never loved a monster like that. I loved the man whom I married. I loved him for everything he could have ever been. I loved the dream of him, the thought of him,….. just not the truth of him. 

From noon to 4 we drove. As I looked out over the Ozark hills, the ones I'd dreamed of for 10 years, I knew they weren't my home. It felt so disconnected with my thought process. Here was something I'd always wanted, and now I knew it was something I would never take. Compared to the back water hills of Tennessee, the Oazrks look like a cheap China knock off.

4:30pm We find our campsite. It has showers (and there was much rejoicing). The campsite is close to perfect and we are planning on staying here a few days. It boasts my two prerequisites: showers and moving water. If you've never slept outdoors next to moving water, you have no idea what you are missing. (Although, there are some water ways that might not meet this. India and a certain river in the middle of Manila come to mind) 

4:40 Truck unloaded and chores begin. Setup somehow becomes my responsibility. Now, let me step aside here and say that my kids are trained. They know that everyone must work together and this is how we all have fun. Prior to leaving, I worked with each of them on their area of camp responsibility. If it was kitchen setup, then we practiced it in the living room. You get the picture. My kids know what to do. So imagine how full of pride and love I am when they all walk off and leave me. I should have stepped up right then. I should have stopped them and brought them back. "They're young, they've been in the car all day. Let them explore." I reason. The stove stops working. The lantern is broken. It begins to rain. I break. 

4:41pm The 14yo discovers that the showers only have cold water.

9pm After many and many attempts at making the fire hot enough to boil fire (Bear Grylls I am not), we eat a dinner of bacon and eggs.

We climb into the sleeping bags no later than 10:30pm. 

From across the tent, the 9yo tells me, "Mom, I'm having a great time. I wish we could go on forever." All the while, I'm thinking I'm too tired to write, this is a bust and a shame and I want my hot water back. 

Who would have thought I was that addicted to tea?