Vacation to Amland

We went camping last weekend, up at our land in northwestern PA. The Amish live up there. I am calling it Amland in honor of my favorite fictional paper salesman, Dwight Schrute. Lovely, lovely Amland.

See? I’m serious. It’s like Land Before Time up there. Just farms and teeny die-cut machinery works and then some more farms. Holy Barnraising, how I love it.

I mean, come on. Rolling fields. Red barns. Blue sky. It’s so peaceful and beautiful, which is a good thing, because the trip takes about seven hundred hours, and it’s very dusty, and you’d better hope for some picaresque eye candy if you’re going to make it to the end.

It took about three hours of packing to get ready. Children require a lot of crap, and camping requires a lot of crap, and the combination of the two means an exponential amount of crap.

Then you load up all the crap and drive. Drive drive drive. Drive a little bit more. Then, when you’re done driving, you should drive.

Finally, you get to Meadville. This means you are not done driving. However, now there are at least things to look at.

Look! It’s made of signs! Very clever.

I have a restroom story about this Arby’s but I’m not allowed to share it.

After Meadville, you drive some more, and then there’s the Amish bit I mentioned above, and Spartansburg, and the fields and farms and all that. Just miles and miles of it. People living on like 10, 50, 100 acres at a time. I bet a lot of them are crazy old coots. Coots with shotguns.

Once you pass the crazy old coots, you turn on to the dirt road. For real, people still live and drive on dirt roads. I love it. Well, I sort of do. I mean, I love the idea of dirt roads. Very romantic. The actuality is quite dusty, though.

I didn’t get a picture of this, but one of the road signs off the dirt road says SMITH EASTMAN RD. I’m related to the person after whom that road was named. By marriage, but still. Isn’t that wild? The Eastmans are just all over the place up there and I reckon they’re all related to the person after whom that road was named. Nuts.

Anyway. All that driving and traveling and we finally get to the camp. Other than a small gate and a NO HUNTING sign, there is no indication that we are looking at 300+ acres of familial land. I think there should be a quaint handpainted sign or something.

This is the point that the camping gets underway. This is the reason for doing all that driving. Have you ever been car camping? Tent camping? You just park the truck, set up the tent, and start sitting around for a few hours trying not to get bit, burned or beset by dogs.

Oh, seriously, the dogs. I forgot to mention: we were doing the camping with my sister-in-law, her children, my father-in-law, and a grand total of 7 or 8 dogs (some we brought with, the rest came with some more relatives who dropped by to visit). Oh these fucking DOGS. Barking. Howling. Sniffing each other. Fighting. And PEEING. Boomer, the German Shorthair my sister-in-law was selling to her uncle, peed on my baby. Allow me to repeat that.

THE DOG PEED ON MY BABY.

I love my sister-in-law. I’m sure the dog has its admirable qualities. But he peed. On. My. Baby. And the baby was in his carseat, resting in the shade under the tree, and so the baby, his clothes, his diaper, and the carseat were all peed upon. And it’s camping, so it’s not like I can just whisk him away for a right proper bath or anything and toss the clothes in the wash. Argh.

ThedogpeedonmybabyARGH.

OK. I promise that’s the last time I say that. I forgive my sister-in-law of course but the dog will remain on my shit list for a while.

Anyway. It could have been worse. Right? Tell me it could have been worse.

The rest of camping was pretty fun. It was the first time for my both my children. Aside from the peeing, I don’t think Mac cared one way or the other. Owen, I believe, had a good time. There was go-karting and whittling and hiking and eating food that was cooked over a fire. There was sleeping in a tent and staying up late and peeing in the woods.

Personally, I’m not such a fan of peeing in the woods, partly because of the splash factor but mostly because — well, it’s peeing in the woods. There are no doors and there are no sinks and I tend to get quite dehydrated in my attempt to avoid doing it.

One other thing I would change — aside from the lack of proper sanitation facilities — would be the tent. We have a little two-man tent. My kids are pretty small, and so we figured we’d all just sleep in there, puppy style. We’d fit, right? I have to say that was a dire miscalculation, thinking four people could comfortably sleep in that moldy old thing. Sure we’d fit but we wouldn’t sleep. The ground was hard, my nose was running, Iain was snoring, Owen took up half the tent with his sprawling toddler legs and everybody was pressed up on me, who lay on my side in the middle trying to nurse the baby without using my hands, which were pinned to my sides by different members of my sleeping family. It was hell. I must have dozed off for a few minutes, because there was drool on my pillow (at least I think it was my drool). But in all the sleep was highly shitty. I was glad when dawn finally broke and I could clamber out of there and stretch without tripping over myself and breaking something in the dark. Like my nose.

Breakfast was instant coffee and eggs over the fire; then it was time for a last small bit of gokart riding over to Uncle Larry’s cabin, ensuring that we’d be nice and mud-covered for the drive home. I was itching to get out of there and shower, which is always the case. If I could only bathe I’d love to stay around for longer than a day, but camping has a way of making you seven times as dirty as you can tolerate. It’s mathematical fact.

So we all rode back to camp from Larry’s in the back of the truck, bouncing around with Morgan the Gordon Setter trotting after us. It was actually kind of fun, the truck rumbling and the kids laughing and the morning sun shining down happily. I almost wanted to stay longer.

But then I realized I had to pee, and the fewer times I have to do that standing up the better it is for everyone.

So that was our vacation to Amland. With two children. And no running water. And eight slobbery dogs. We loaded up the truck and reversed on out of there, back up the dirt road and past Smith Eastman Rd. and on toward the highway, just our bug-bitten, dusty, mud-covered selves.

I’d do it again, maybe, the camping. Even with the children. But next time I’m bringing a port-a-john, copious amounts of Tylenol P.M., and a secret stash of cigarettes.

August 16, 2007 | Filed Under other

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Comments

9 Responses to “Vacation to Amland”

girl on August 16th, 2007 5:01 pm

Very interested in the bathroom story, snort.
JG on August 16th, 2007 7:36 pm

oh sweet christ. the dog peed on the baby.
Stacy on August 16th, 2007 7:48 pm

how did you think camping with a 2-month-old would go?
supa on August 16th, 2007 8:22 pm

pretty much like that, actually.
otter on August 17th, 2007 7:43 am

You? Best sport ever.
Ty on August 17th, 2007 8:43 am

That’s awesome. You are quite the trooper…

Notes on how it could have been worse?? Try having the temperature suddenly drop from the 60s to 19 degrees!! Yes, 19 degrees. Miserable, I tell you! OR, how about a sudden and unforeseen downpour that wouldn’t let up?? (Although we had an old camper on that trip, which helped, but still left us having to pee like race horses, and having nothing to do about it except get completely drenched…)

If you do go camping again, and it’s not to family land, perhaps consider getting a site with a water hook-up. The sites with water hook-ups are usually near bathrooms! And some even have electricity hook-ups, too. Granted, that’s not quite roughing it, but with kids, (or wimpy adults!) it’s great.

I HEART camping.
HVM on August 17th, 2007 12:14 pm

hey, remember that time i tent camped cross-country with my two month old and my 19 month old? ah, the memories.

that was probably the beginning of the end of my marriage, come to think of it…

anywho, miss you, hope all’s well… i want the bathroom story too…
shy Victoria on August 17th, 2007 4:31 pm

peed on the baby. dog!

I’m crying laughing right now.
supa on August 19th, 2007 8:16 pm

[quote comment=”28445”]
If you do go camping again, and it’s not to family land, perhaps consider getting a site with a water hook-up. The sites with water hook-ups are usually near bathrooms!
I HEART camping.[/quote]

I would heart that camping too!

I’m sworn to secrecy on the bathroom story. I’m sorry. But I would totally share otherwise.

@HVM: holy schneikes, talk about a trooper. Hope you are doing well as well. Will check in personally in a mo’.

@shy Victoria: crying laughing is right! Heh.