“Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance…”

A beloved music teacher of mine used to drill that into our heads…you’ll have to excuse the colorful language on this family blog, but there are times when the words are just so perfect…

Many years ago we were planning our first trip together, Superman and I.   It was our first vacation, freshly married and taking on the world as a pair.  We had barely any money but did have a tiny car and a great sense of adventure … and he had a big blue tent.  Having grown up in a very outdoorsy family and with his military experience, he reassured me that he would take care of everything - he was very adept at camping and he would show me how great it was.  I kept my apprehension to myself and we were off to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. 

We pulled in to a lovely little campground just next to the beach and by the time we got there I must say I was excited for our adventure to begin.  I was sure that this trip would vanquish my previously unpleasant experiences (I’ll share those in another series!)  and make a camper out of me yet.  We had our pick of campsites – the campground was conspicuously empty for that time of year – and we got the tent up.  Well,  HE got the tent up while I watched, and then it started to rain.  No worries, we were young and excited, not afraid of a little rain – and besides, there was a bar close by. 

We figured unpacking the gear from the car into the tent might not be such a good idea, so we headed off for the bar to wait out the rain.  We were surprised at the lack of customers at the cute little bar – wasn’t summer supposed to be busy near the beach?  The bartender quickly informed that this rain was actually the edge of a hurricane.  Apparently we missed that little detail of checking the weather while planning our trip!   Ah, yes, planning – we didn’t do too much of that in our haste for a new adventure.

We passed a nice, long afternoon in the bar and then decided to head back to the campsite – no little hurricane was going to ruin our fun, we thought.  We clambered into our big blue tent with some of our gear and discovered it was wet … really, really wet.  Again, we missed another little detail while planning – check your gear!  Planning, it was becoming painfully clear, was not our forte…ouch.  Our tent was riddled with holes and no amount of Superman’s great experience could fix it in that downpour. 

After some consideration we tossed the tent and the camping idea and made for a local hotel – thanks to that hurricane we were able to get a pretty nice room at a rock bottom rate that weekend.  But we never forgot the lessons we learned on that first camping adventure together – plan, plan, plan!  Check the gear before you go and check the weather, too, or you might be in for some big time surprises! 

Happy Camping!