Plans Gone Awry

I love planning and I am not really a go-with-the-flow person. but sometimes plans go awry: you get lost, you get hurt, you have car trouble. In order to enjoy time with your family sometimes you need to relax and be at peace even when your plan doesn’t work.

When I start planning a vacation, I tend to romanticize the place and how much fun we will have. One summer I decided we should camp at a lake in northern Wisconsin. Cooler temperatures. Loons. Perseid meteor shower. Perfect getaway. But like lots of plans, things went awry.

The trip started great with travels further north than we had been before, at least with the kids. I had selected a camp ground in the Chequamegon National Forest. This was pre-GPS on every phone, but we had a map and it look straight forward enough. It wasn’t.

Plans gone awry #1: Where are we?

Turns out many of the roads were not labeled. We twisted and turned for it seemed like forever. The van got hotter and dustier (since these were all gravel roads, of course). People started to get hungry and cranky. I was so turned around I was not even sure I could find my way back out again. Fortunately my husband has a better sense of direction.

Finally! We found a campground with a few sites right on a lake. I still am not sure if we found the place we were originally looking for or not. We got the tent set up and got lunch made so people were happier, and could relax. The lake was quiet and we could hear and see the loons.

Plans gone awry #2: The trouble with boys and sticks

After lunch, we decided to take a nature walk along one of the trails. Have you ever taken a nature walk with little children? It is more about walking and a lot less about seeing nature – or at least wildlife. Our kids tended to alert the animals of our presence for miles. Oh well.

As we walked along, our second son picked up a stick. Pretty normal behavior. He started swinging it around. Still normal. Then he found a hornet’s nest and decided to swing at it. As fortune would have it, he did not get stung nor did most of the family. In fact, the only two people to get stung were the two that were allergic to wasps.

We rushed back to the campsite, drank some Benedryl and took a nap. I was one of those stung, so my husband had solo child duty for a few hours. My daughter and I woke up none the worse for wear and we made a great dinner over the fire.

A beautiful night

After it got dark we dragged our chairs down to the shore where we could get an unobstructed view of the sky. And the meteor shower was spectacular. The night was magical with the stars and loons. It was all I had imagined it would be.

Until the next morning when we were packing up and discovered that the van would not start. Plans gone awry #3. Evidently while we were passed out yesterday we managed to drain the battery. Sigh. I did what I normally did and tried to call AAA, only to realize that I could not really describe where we were. They said they would try to find us.

Fortunately, my husband has more than a dollop of common sense and he hiked around the lake and found someone that could give us a jump. The van started up and we were on our way – but we will never forget our time at the unknown campsite!