Emery Styron
River Hills Traveler

I am camping this week at Babler State Park, just north of Eureka off I-44. It’s an adventure, as usual, this time with wildlife. More about that in a bit.

Our old Coachmen pop-up didn’t see any use last year. We bought it used, year before last and things didn’t go well. In a blaze of enthusiasm, we took it out every chance that arose. Each one was a disaster.

We got windblown and rain-soaked in Nebraska, and had to take shelter at a motel in Omaha.

We broke a spring on the way to Mark Twain Lake in northeast Missouri. The tire rubbed on the wheel well lining and nearly caught the trailer on fire. I spent most of the Fourth of July weekend on my back underneath the pop-up in a campground so crowded it looked like a Mideast refugee settlement.

The next time and the time after, it rained again. We felt personally responsible for flood conditions just for dropping the tongue on our trailer ball.

Last summer, when we mentioned camping, our kids brought up softball and swimming lessons and church camp. It was clear they’d rather stay home and clean their bedrooms than suffer another soggy weekend under mildewy canvas.

This time it’s just me. I’m camping by night and selling ads by day. I stopped by the supermarket in Wildwood for a loaf of bread and some salad before going to camp last night. While I changing clothes in the trailer, I noticed movement inside the mini-van. I scrambled out half dressed to find a racoon raiding the grocery supply.

Even if a racoon is Traveler’ mascot, I didn’t take it kindly. The critter made off with a loaf of bread and punctured the plastic bag in a new box of cereal with one of its claws.

I had a salad instead of sandwiches last night and took my chances with the cereal this morning. All in all, it’s great to be camping again. Babler is so beautiful and serene, it was hard to make myself leave this morning. After a day of fighting traffic and making calls all over the western side of the metro area, I can’t wait to get back out the park and eat supper under the stars.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 9th, 2007 at 12:52 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.