What an adventure!

It has been made a formal Dugan family decision, sworn, sealed and enacted into law that if anyone gets the bright idea to go camping over the 4th of July ever again, they will be immediately struck by lightning. You may recall the Poe Valley debacle last summer where we sat along the road for the better part of half a day due to a storm that had trees down blocking the roadways?  Well...I now enter into evidence the story of Nemacolin 2015. 

Everything was going great when we left on Thursday morning. This was our maiden voyage with Jason's new truck- specifically ordered with max towing capacity to be able to handle our trailer and all of the stuff we lug along with us. In all of the ways his Ram had struggled, we were noticing huge differences in gas mileage and overall ease that we could pull the nearly 10,000 pounds behind us. Until...

Somewhere before Bedford (and still 75 miles or so from Nemacolin) both of us heard a sound. To me, it sounded like we hit a groundhog. But it became very clear that that was not the case when the truck engine all of a sudden sounded like it was going to take off. Our 2000 rpm's quickly jumped to 6000 and the engine was shutting off at about 20 mph. We pulled into a Sheetz (and it isn't easy to just pull off when you're as long as we are) to think about what to do. Jason called the dealership to ask for advice and they didn't have any suggestions other than that maybe something had come unhooked. So we tried to keep going-- only to discover that it wasn't going to work to do so. Thank goodness for phones because we searched and found that we were 2.8 miles from a Ford dealership. So we went there. 

God bless those people at Shaffer Ford.  They came out to us in the parking lot and diagnosed and repaired the issue (the hose from the eco boost part of the engine) within a half hour. After that was fixed, we were back on our way and arrived at Nemacolin around 3:30. We were so relieved to be there safely and thankful that the excitement was over. 

Until...

Around 7:00 that evening, just as we finished supper, Mara came to me and climbed in my lap and fell asleep. Very odd for my little night owl. Jason observed that she looked awfully pale. Before an hour had passed, she was burning up with a fever and had declared thet her throat was hurting her when she swallowed. Fantastic.  

The rest of Thursday night was miserable. She couldn't sleep. Wouldn't eat. Was throwing up. Couldn't keep Tylenol or Motrin in her to help with the fever. So Friday morning we had to figure out what do. We thought about heading home, but I figured with the holiday weekend we wouldn't be able to see our doctor and would have to opt for a Med Express type option. So I searched for one of those nearby and found one in Uniontown- about 20 minutes away. So we got ready to go. The only challenge was that the only vehicle we had was Jason's huge and very NEW truck-- the same one I had vowed never to drive. But drive it I did. We made it to Med Express, and as it turns out, so did the rest of the population of Uniontown. We waited there for a few hours and finally saw a doctor who suspected strep throat even though the strep screen was negative. So they gave us some amoxicillin and away we went. So Friday was basically a wreck. Jason had kept the big kids and Toby at the campground to go swimming, and they had a blast. Me and Mara, not so much. 

Friday night the rain started. Like "Noah, build your ark" rain. Cats and dogs falling from the sky rain. And once it started, it didn't even let up until Saturday around noon. And so, the Dugan five plus active four month old puppy occupied ourselves inside of our 30' long tin can. We couldn't cook our supper as planned because we needed the fire to do so. And so we decided to take advantage of being at Nemacolin and see if we could find a restaurant to accommodate us, the Sherrells and their friends who had joined them for the weekend. A group of 12. Good luck. But we managed to eat at The Caddy Shack - a casual bbq restaurant on site. So that sure beat the Easy Mac and Chef Boyardee options I had in the camper. After dinner I headed back with Mara who was still fevered and miserable while Jason took the big kids to play at the arcade for a while. There certainly was no campfire sitting. 

Saturday morning it was still yucky and cold so we headed for the Gymnastics Center. The kids always love bouncing on the trampolines and jumping into the foam pit. This may have been our saving grace because I think one more minute in the camper and we might have all lost it. 

Lucky for us, the sun came out while we were jumping so we hurried up to the pool to swim for a while. The kids absolutely love the water slide and had a ball playing in the pool. Seats were at a premium because as soon as the sun peeked out and the temperature rose beyond 70 degrees, the people came out of the woodwork for the pool. 

We redeemed the day- and frankly the weekend- with weather that was agreeable to an outside cookout on the fires. We made our steaks over the fire and had lots of yummy things to go with them. We sat outside, the kids rode bikes, we ate apple pie and then watched the fireworks show from the campsite. Only one tree blocked our view. Lucky for us, there was a wedding taking place just up the hill from the campground and they had arranged for a special fireworks show at 11:00 pm.  Although it sounded like Vietnam at our site because they were setting them off so closeby, it was amazing to see the fireworks so close.  The entire sky above us was gorgeously lit up. Somehow, Josh slept through it and Mara fell asleep in my lap during it. But a great ending to the weekend it was, indeed. 

We packed up and headed home Sunday morning. Followed by a ridiculous amount of laundry that still remains un-put away.  Glad that trip is in the books. And looking for plans for next July 4th that don't involve camping!