High class redneck camping

Now, when most people are home on vacation from the Peace Corps they dream of sleeping in their bed, in their air conditioned home, mosquito-net free. Not me. My first weekend home I wanted nothing more than to go camping in the beautiful forgotten coast of Florida in the little beach town of Grayton Beach. Grayton Beach is one of the small fisherman towns along the northern gulf, it’s a bit of a hippy artsy town with lots of little shops and bars on the beach.
Nothing sounded better than the 5 of us cramming into our little tent, falling asleep to the load deafening snores of my parents, and peacefully sleeping on the ever so comfortable hard gravel beneath us. Sounds pretty flipping fantastic doesn’t it? It was for me! (and based on everyone’s complaints for the next two days about how their backs hurt, I guess I was the only one).
We got to Grayton early in the morning and spent all day at the beach, swimming, playing football, and drinking our warm coronas (warm beer is better than no beer!). Later there was a wedding ceremony on the beach, and we had perfect front row seating, so we moved our lawn chairs back a little to give the wedding party some space, grabbed another warm corona and spent another hour making up the life stories of the marrying couple and their guest.
When we got back to the camp site, we found Ryan who had left the beach earlier sitting behind the tent on the cooler, with the computer and wifi router connected to a little electricity box playing fantasy football. Who brings a computer and wifi router camping?! Clearly my brother doesn’t get the concept of roughing it and being one with nature for the night.
After setting up the tent, we realize we don’t have the tent cover, and its suppose to drop down to 60 degrees tonight (yes, that is freezing by Florida standards!!!). Realizing we are going to freeze to death, we take our towels and a spare blanket and try to cover our tent. Redneck much? Let’s just say next to the clothing line and Ryan sitting on the cooler our tent fit right in.
We may have had the most ghetto tent in the campground, but I guarantee we had the most elegant meal to go with it. Only an Italian mother thinks to pack wine glasses, wines, good cheeses, wheat thins, specialty bread, and salad to go with the fire-grilled hamburgers.
After a great dinner, we squeezed into our tent with high hopes for a good night’s sleep. We had laid out some sheets and blankets on the ground, and tried to level out any big rocks in the gravel. The night went something like this…
10:00 PM Girls got into tent and fall asleep
12:00 AM Dad and Ryan get into tent, Ryan steps on us, and wakes us up, Dad hits his head and there go those towels and blankets covering our tent.
1:00 AM Is there a train in Grayton Beach? Oh no wait... That’s just dad’s snoring.
1:30 AM Or is there a train? Nope, now mom’s snoring too.
3:00 AM Ryan wakes us up. And in the most pitiful about to cry voice says “Guys, I’m freezing to death” as he tries to pull the blanket from under me. “Ryan, stop trying to steal my blanket I’m wrapped in it.” Ryan: “mom, julia, give me blankets I’m freezing to death.”
My mom then turns on the flashlight and shines it on Ryan. He’s in shorts and a t-shirt curled into a little ball on the hard plastic of the tent with only Julia’s little princess sleeping bag wrapped around half of his body. Our first reaction: Oh my gosh, how cute is that, we need a picture of Ryan like that! Second reaction moments later: Ok, actually yeah that looks pitiful and painful here’s some more blankets. We’re such good sisters.
4:00 AM The trains returned. AKA mom and dad’s snoring.
5:00 AM Finally morning, time to get out of the tent, and walk on the beach to Seaside for a nice Starbucks coffee!
5:05 AM The complaining from mom, dad, Julia, and Ryan starts.
6:00 AM Breakfast of champions> first get out a left over hamburger bun, make a circle hole in the center of it, put some cheese on it spread out, and call it a bagel with cream cheese.
All in all, our family camping outing was a trip to remember. Camping may not give you the best night’s sleep but it definitely makes for lots of laughs and fun stories to be told. After packing our car (which looked like we’d gone away for a week, not a night), we headed to the beach for one more dip, before heading back to the air-conditioned, mosquito-net free, beds made of more than sheets, comforts of home.