Camptastic: The Helicopter Rescue*

Note to REI : add "helicopter
safety harness" to your Camping
Needs list.

After all the drama camping has wreaked upon my life, you would think that once the weather broke, it would be smooth sailing (or whatever is the camping equivalent).  I had hope when I returned to the tent after the baptism and discovered that Brian, a.k.a. Best Husband Ever, had sopped up all the water inside and aired it out completely, that camping might turn into the fun so many people declare it to be.

Hosanna asked if we could go on a little date, just the two of us, to hike the trails she had explored earlier with some of the "big kids". The sign at the trail head said, ".19 miles", so I grabbed my camera and off we went, thinking we would return in, oh, about five minutes.

"Hosanna!  Put the camera away and
rescue your mom who is falling down
this steep, cliff-like, slightly
declining hiking trail mountain pass!"

The woods were beautiful.  It felt all cocoon-like ("safe", not like the movie Cocoon), was very green, and very quiet. Hosanna and I took some awesome adventure shots of us doing some extreme hiking.

"BELLA!  RUN!  LAURENT IS RIGHT
BEHIND YOUUUUUU!!"

We continued on in this fashion with Hosanna leading the way, until the girl tried to convince me the way back to camp was the right fork of a trail that would necessitate me belly-crawling through the woods and it wasn't even the Warrior Dash.

(*Confession:  I have been suffering some FOR REAL condemnation over my lack of Navy Seal attributes lately.  First, with the leeches.  I know Navy Seals wouldn't be scared of leeches; leeches are a fine protein source maybe even more so than Nutter Butters and probably grace the table at the occasional Navy Seal Potluck.  Then, this whole camping thing is really outing me for being a giant weenie.  I've probably lost my made-up, self-proclaimed standing as the Most Like a Navy Seal Without Actually Being One, due to my latest posts.  Lesson learned?  Honesty = ruins your life.)

In response to the belly-crawling trail, I pulled rank on Hosanna and in my best decision making thus far said, "No, let's turn left and see where it goes."  (You get chills just reading that, right?)

We walked a bit, still having fun because we were ignorant.  We walked some more ... and some more ... and some more.  Even Hosanna started to get nervous.

"Um, Mama?  Do you think we will get back to the tent soon?"
 "Probably!  Isn't this fun?  It's like we are on the most fun adventure ever!  I'm absolutely sure we are not going to die here."

But in my heart I knew this was exactly like the Blair Witch Project.  I even heard, verbatim (well, kind of, I haven't seen the movie in over ten years), Heather saying (in my head), "It's virtually impossible to get lost in America.  It's even harder to stay lost."  But look what happened to Heather, dude. (For those of you who haven't seen the movie, *Spoiler Alert*, she totally stays lost forever.)

I know the main rule of being lost in the woods is to stay put and don't move, but I was pretty sure we were within a half mile of our camp sight, and I was feeling scared enough to keep moving adventurous.  I took stock of my supplies, which included my camera.  If you are waiting for me to list the more helpful supplies like my cell phone or water, I didn't have them.  But if we were going to be attacked by the Blair Witch a raccoon I would be able to capture it digitally, and maybe it would be a You Tube sensation.  Maybe we would even be invited to be on the Today show and I could make things all awkward and bring up Ann Curry.  The possibilities were endless.

We kept walking and I started seeing signs marked "perimeter".  I choose to follow them until the trails they marked got less "trail-like" and more "traipsing through brush so thick a machete would come in handy*."

*this might be a slight exaggeration.  But I did have to step over like, a lot of logs, and the grass was getting really high and was also wet from the rain, so yeah, it was rough.

At the next fork, we stopped and I thought about our options.  I knew then the only way out was by helicopter rescue, which was on one hand super exciting, but on the other, not the way I imagined first meeting the Navy Seals. (Please indulge me and do not remind me that Navy Seals predominately do high profile/really dangerous missions water rescue.  The woods were wet, so hey, a girl can dream.)

I was trying to figure out how long we would have to wait before our rescuers arrived when I noticed some deep tire tracks off to the left.  Well it totally turns out that if you follow those tire tracks for about three minutes you are back at your tent.  So I didn't need the Navy Seals after all, which is extremely disappointing, but the way it has to be if you are going to redeem your Most Like a Navy Seal Without Actually Being One status.

Upon our return from nearly succumbing to the woods, guess what?  No one knew we were missing. It's like there wasn't even a real problem.

At least the day ended well.

This is my marshmallow.  Looks good, right?  What you can't see here is that those marshmallows to the left, on the two-pronged roasting stick?  Were done to perfection.  It was like I was sitting next to the Overlord of Marshmallow Roasting, but everyone just calls him Greg.  He kept dropping little nuggets of wisdom that I immediately tried to implement, like, "Using coals works best."  *my mind is blown because this actually works way better than my method of "catch them on fire because you think they cook faster but all it does is char the outside and leave the inside stuck to the stick when you try to pull it off"* I might be super jealous of his impeccable roasting skills, except that he was making those for his wife Tiffany who was pregnant with their fifth child and camping.  So, yeah, roast away Marshmallow King. 

*that never happened.