Welcome back to my camping weekend recap.
Alert: Sometimes it takes me awhile to tell stories.
This camping trip recap might go on all week.
Consider yourselves warned.
Soon after we set up The Parachute, the camp host made his way to our site.
“Excuse me, Taylor? Your parents are on the phone for you.”
At this campground, we do not have cell service. The Camp Host, however, has a working phone.
My parents L-O-V-E this campground so much, they have his number programmed in their cell phones so they can call ahead and check to see if the campground is full.
Remember my parents?
Turns out my parents had been en route to our campsite when their truck broke down.
Conveniently, their truck broke down about 10 minutes away from our home in Ruralville.
Yet, we were not-so-conveniently about an hour away.
My dad told The Lumberjack that his “serpentine” belt was broken.
Are you wondering what a “serpentine” belt is?
You are not alone.
So, we load all the children back into the rig and drive back to our neck of the woods.
The kids are slightly confused and keep commenting on how short that camping trip was.
Poor Lumberjacklings.
Such a life of confusion.
As we are flying down the river road, we come into cell service.
And now, for your reading enjoyment, I shall present to you:
The Lumberjack, and his family, in all of their Glory
Lumberjack to me: Dial Lisa.
Interruption: Lisa is The Lumberjack’s older sister. She is married to Jack, has two little girls, and is more woman than I shall ever be.
Me: Done. Do you want me to talk to her?
Lumberjack: No. I’ll talk.
Interruption: This is good news, since I had no idea what we were calling Lisa about.
Over and Out.
LJ: Lisa! Are you still in town?
Lisa and Jack were also joining us for camping. They are just super poky and had not yet made their departure.
Lisa: Yes.
LJ: Ok. We have a situation. Grant and Connie broke down.
Lisa: Uh-oh.
LJ: I need you to find me a Serpentine Belt.
Lisa: OK, will do.
LJ: Do you guys have tools?
Lisa: Yes, what do you need?
LJ: blah-blah-blah-blobbity-blah-blah
Silly readers! I knew not what tools they were speaking of!
Lisa: Of course we have those!
LJ: Call me back soon.
Sadly, we are out of service again.
I ask my Lumberjack 4.2 billion questions.
Here is a sampling:
What are we doing?
Why is Lisa getting a serpentine belt?
What is a serpentine belt?
Sounds like snake! ha!
What are Jake brakes? All my life I have wondered what Jake brakes are.
What are compression brakes?
Same thing? That’s dumb.
Why did you want to move to Ruralville?
Why don’t you highlight your hair anymore?
Where are we going?
When do we eat?
Do I still have to cook dinner tonight?
All of a sudden my phone gets 2 texts and a voicemail, alerting us that we are back in service!
Text 1: From Bimlissa (aka Melissa) informing me of something cute our girls did.
Text 2: My sister asking me to tell my dad about a job interview she has.
Voicemail: Lisa needing to know if my dad’s truck is a 2 wheel drive or a 4 wheel drive.
Sorry, Bimlissa and Meagan.
Lisa gets top priority.
Phone call to Dad.
Phone call to Lisa.
Text Bimlissa.
Message failed. Out of service.
Luckily for the Lumberjack, I am out of questions.
Cell service resumed!
Text to Meagan: Ok-but Dad is stressed and broke down right now. Not a good time to tell him. David is to the rescue.
Lest any of you are confused, The Lumberjack also goes by David.
Meagan’s return: What’s wrong with Dad’s truck?
Me: A serpentine belt? Jack and Lisa are en route from town with a new one. David and I are headed to tow the trailer. A tow truck is towing the truck. But Jack and David will try to repair truck.
Meagan: David and kin are uber impressive! haha! Refrain from telling Dad my news until he cheers up!
Me: Will do.
Magically, we all pull up to my parent’s truck/trailer fiasco at the same time.
Jack, David, my Dad, and the Tow Truck Driver all look under the hood and try to repair the truck.
Fact: The tow truck driver had a lot of strange facial hair happening. But that is neither here nor there.
The manly men come to the conclusion that there is more to this repair than a serpentine belt and deem it unfixable by them.
So, the truck gets towed to a shop and we tow my parents back to camp.
On the way back to the campground, I inform everyone that it is almost 10 pm and I am still hungry.
So instead of me grilling up some delicious Teriyaki Chicken Burgers-
*I will wait while you get over your amazement at my mad skills*
my parents treated everyone to pizza and we went back and finished setting up for camp.
And thus, Friday night came to an end.
Tune in tomorrow for more pointless recap-u-lations.
Or, be wise and stay away.
The choice is yours.
I hope you get a kick out of this.
I was helping a customer with an issue they were having with our software and wordpress. For some reason, the pictures weren’t displaying. I decided to use your site as a test site, since it’s on word press and has pictures. (since I haven’t figured that one out yet.) So, I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I asked a co-worker and they came over and helped. The entire time, he was looking at the pictures and asking about the. Well, since I’m so well versed in all things Lumberjack, I started explaining.
His exact quote “Oh, you know this family.”
Alas, I do not. I just <3 your blog. 🙂
I got a chuckle out of it.
P.S. Co-Worker is madly impressed with the parachute. He is going to be purchasing one. 🙂
Ok – I am detail minded and need to have things explained. Did your parents have camping gear? Did it all get loaded up with you including all your family and parents? After the late pizza, did you still have to go back and set up camp? I know you had the whole parachute thing going, but do your parents use a tent? And do you guys always camp in the company of family? Do you ever go on your own? Do your boys still wake up at 5:00 am when you are camping? How can you possibly go camping so often and still keep up with things at home?? Oh I could go on, but I will stop now. And I had better see an upcoming post about the black bean brownies…..
Aren’t you the Inquisitive One tonight?! 🙂
Ok. We were camping with Jack and Lisa and my parents. We were the first to arrive.
My parents were towing their trailer.
My parents just had to set up their trailer, as did Jack and Lisa once we returned.
We always camp with family. Never on our own.
My boys wake up super early no matter what.
I don’t keep up with anything.
Check on the brownies.
I see how I was uber confusing tonight. I tried to update my post a bit to help with the confusion.
ummm… pizza… better yet, impromptu late-night pizza… The best kind… That was the point of your post… right??
Shoot! I don’t know what the point was! 🙂 Sometimes I just ramble . .
I ditto The Little Brown House’s questions. My mind has been left wondering and will be looking forward to the answers!
How do you get pizza out camping? No wonder your parents love that camp ground!!
*sigh* we had to drive through an undisclosed town on our way back to the campsite.
I am way confusing tonight, I guess!!!!!
Well then, sounds like our kind of camping trip. We go out and invariably someone in our group has to go back to town for something… We do however go just as a family… it’s pretty rockin’!
I know what a serpentine belt is. Sort of. Not because I want to, but because I have no choice.My husband is all about cars and what goes on under the hood. But his hands are huge, so I always have to be his hands in tight engine situations. So I know things. Enough to be dangerous anyway.I also would like to know how you got this pizza while camping. And I’m stealing teriyaki chicken burgers for our next camping trip for sure. Genius! My husband will be thrilled. 🙂
When I first read the title to this post, I thought maybe you lost it. lol
You are not in any way convincing me that camping is a good thing.
I blame your dad’s truck breaking down on the fact that it was headed towards a campground. The truck was smart.
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This is one of the things I like about camping…there is always a story or two to be re-told later.
Hey, I know what a serpentine belt is! Well, not really, but I did have a problem with mine. I didn’t know I had a problem until the guy who changed my oil (the car’s oil, actually) told me I had a problem. And wanted to charge me over $100 to fix it. I told him I’d let him know. Then I told Indiana Jones and he had a mechanic friend of his fix it. And now I am happy, although I still don’t know what a serpentine belt is nor what would happen if it should not be all that it is supposed to be.
You are a saint. I hate camping and the only worse (in my mind) would be camping with a bunch of little children.
You are Too Funny!! The best part of camping for me is ….going home! Enjoy you day!
Oh my dear…I wantt to leave a great comment, but I am exhausted just reading your blog today.
Hey, I want to hear about your sis’ job interview.
I better call her!!
xoxo