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 Our friend Rundes rented a van to bring us here.  Check out at the airbnb was at 11, check in at the campground was at 3.  

We set up in Rundes' garage for a couple hours, then headed to the campground, about an hour away.  The van was actually a small bus, with all the seats in it, wailing cats in cat carriers wedged in the front row with the youngins, the rest of our too much crap in the back two? three? rows of bus seats.  I cannot emphasize enough the too much crap, but we'll get to that in time.  Believe me.

We stopped on the way out of the Cities at a Wal-Mart.  I needed another cat harness and leash for our guest cat, we needed flea drops for our previously indoor only critters, and I needed some wooden spoons and a spatula to use with my cast iron pans and the camp grill Glenda and Dean sent us.  

I also got Twizzlers, and got the kids some Reeses cups as they hadn't eaten much all day and it would be a while until they could.

Walmart was weirdly disorienting.  I went in at 3ish and it could have been midnight when I finished, who knew? There was no natural light, no way of telling time was passing, nothing but more and more rows to try and search through for something I was forgetting.

Oh, right, a life jacket for Aaron.  The campground has a pool, and he has History with water - he can't be trusted not to toss himself right in when no one is watching.  This way if he still decides to do that, he'll float.  I got him a woman's life jacket, because his favorite color is pink and that was the only pink one there, but I am not sure life jackets have strong feelings about gender.

Back on the road.  Rundes bursts out laughing out of nowhere - we passed a huge industrial building called "Schwing", and that's pretty funny, frankly.

I was following our route on my phone.  That's very different from the last time I was out on a car trip in the country; last time we'd see a couple of lakes, one on either side of the road, and we'd have no idea what either would be called.  Maybe Big Lake.  Lots of Big Lakes in Minnesota.

This time, thanks to the phone, I could helpfully announce the name of Every. Single. Body of water we passed.  You're welcome, fam!

We arrived at the campground, got ourselves sorted out, bought a couple of packages of firewood since that is my plan for cooking.

We got to the campsite, got Aaron and Joey set up watching the cats in the large dog crate Rundes loaned us - Duchess still hates all of the cats but also occasionally wants to cuddle them, until she slaps and lets loose with eerie banshee screams.

And it started raining.  Time to quickly set up the tent.  I wasn't concerned, I used to spend all summer hauling the kids to pow-wows with their awful human (nominally) father.  Aaron could walk then and would grass dance, along with my middle son, Josh, who no longer lives at home (or not-home) with us.  

I have set up so many tents, generally by myself.

However, I have never set up a new tent - all of mine were second hand.  There have been some changes in the tech!  Rundes and I worked as fast as we could to get the kids and cats out of the rain.  We covered the dog crate with the cat carriers to offer shelter to the cats while we worked.

Very luckily for us, a man and his preteen daughter ambled over, seeing us struggling, and he put the tent together with a speed we had not managed.  Also he knew what he was doing!  Then he told us to come get him if we needed anything else and wandered off.

Aaron says no paparazzi!

Duchess snuggles Pouncey.

We tucked the kids and cats into the assembled tent, and Rundes and I - both middle aged and disabled - started trying to get all the Too Much Crap out so she could return the van not too late.  We could not lift the suitcases over the seats!  I thought she asked if I wanted her to go ask the guy to help, but she'd actually asked me to go ask the guy for help.

So it must have seemed very rude when I said "Yeah!" and then went back to trying to haul things.

By this time I was so exhausted and in so much pain that I was not certain I could actually lift my legs to get up into the van.  I did, but it took so much effort.  I just kept thinking "you CANNOT collapse right now".

Rundes said "So, do you want ME to go ask?"

And that's when I realized she's asked me to do that.  I was a mess.  

"Yes, please.  And I think that's his RV over there," I said confidently.

She came back with a random, slightly confused man.  "That was not our guy's RV," she said.  "But this man is going to help us."

And he did!  He lifted all the heavy suitcases with most of our wardrobes crammed into them out of the van.  We shoved them under the sun shade because Aaron's wheelchair and Joey's camp chair were taking up most of the tent at that point.  Joey's got a wonky hip from being dragged by an orca, and a wonky shoulder from it being loosey goosey from the Ehler's Danlos.  Mostly he was put in charge of watching cats and Aaron.

Ok, not a real orca, Joey was dragged by a taxi.  The ER didn't have a code for "dragged by vehicle", though, so the nurse put in the code for "dragged by an orca" and so now that's what I tell everyone happened.  It was a yellow orca in an Arby's parking lot.  You gotta watch out for those.

 Joey's help, while invaluable, is not in the lifting and hauling arena.

So Rundes and I hauled the Too Much Crap that very little of fit in the tent, in the rain.  We put most of it on and under our campsite picnic table, then covered the picnic table with a tarp.

Then Rundes headed out - later than planned, I'm so sorry - and I headed into the tent to try to juggle people around.

Aaron had to go potty.

It is not easy to roll over a tent threshold in a wheelchair.  I kinda wish I'd gotten a yurt or something - one of those glamping canvas bell tents that has less of a threshold, but those are not as inexpensive as Big Ol Walmart Tent.

I do live in terror that we're going to tear our new house getting the Gremlin to the bathroom.

Our campsite is right next to the bathrooms, luckily.  We all rolled on over there through the rain so we can all go to the bathroom.  There are three stalls.  None are accessible, and they don't have locks Aaron can work.  They have hook and eye locks.  Frankly if he could work them, I'm not sure how I'd get it open again if there was a problem.

So I waited for him to lever himself out of his chair and onto the toilet, pull his chair out, shut the door, and park his wheelchair to block his door, since we're all in the women's bathroom.  Joe is AFAB, so he is fine, but I was still nervous about Aaron being in there and ready to totally fistfight anyone who starts something.

Back to the tent.  Back over the threshold.  I couldn't find out extension cord, and friends, there is no way I could blow up three twin sized air beds, one of which is double height (thank you, Carolyn!), even pre-COVID-scarred lungs.

So I hauled all the airbeds to the bathroom, and inflated them all in there, one by one, and one by one dragged them back to the tent and shoved them in willy nilly, right over Aaron's head, which he found hilarious.

I set the beds up with Aaron and Joey at each end of the oblong tent, and me in the middle of the middle.  All of our stuff was crammed behind my bed.  The litterbox was near the door, the cats' food and water on the other side of the door.  The cats were all over, exploring.  Spaghetti kept walking around with one foot in the air, because it was wet and that was Not Ok.

She recovered nicely with some help from a towel.

I went down to the community center because I remembered they had hot pizza there, and I spent Too Much money on pizza so the kids could have warm food for dinner, as again, they'd not eaten much.  After dinner, at about 7, we all fell into our allotted airbeds and went to sleep - Aaron begrudgingly because he was not tired and he wanted a campfire.