The Maven

Camp Lotus Flowers

The Arrival The camping virgins have landed at Camp Lotus. Driving up through Fairfield, Davis, and Sacramento, I, along with nieces Carissa and Amanda, nervously eyed the car’s digital thermometer as it rose from 81 degrees to a sweltering 103 where it stayed all the way to Lotus (a quiet town hugging Sacramento’s American River). The heat was staggering as we struggled to unload the truck. Thankfully, my strong and young nephews Josh and Steven had already arrived, and they shouldered the brunt of the unloaded weight. For the weekend there were 15 of us: my sisters Belinda, Cathy, and Dulce; Bros-in-law Dick, Mel, and Joe; Nieces and nephews Carissa, Ashlie, Amanda, Steven, Joshua, Julia and Sophia; and my cousins Boyet and Dudi with their daughter Noelle would arrive on Saturday.

Quickly spotting that the rest of the Daclison Clan had already set up their tents and were lounging in their respective camping chairs under the little bit of shade they could find, another feeling of trepidation came over me and I immediately wished that I had paid more attention to Mario when he described how to set up our massive tent. Up until that moment, I was bit boastful telling everyone that our tent slept eight. But when I saw the village of smaller, compact tents, that obviously took only minutes to assemble, I began to worry that we would be literally sleeping under the moon and stars.

I’m pretty sure by the end of this weekend, Josh and Steven will have come to the rescue of their clueless aunts, uncles and cousins numerous times, being that they are veteran campers. In the end, the tent setup was uneventful with the product of their labor resulting in the Taj Mahal of tents. With each of us three tenants claiming a wing of the tent, there still remained a large “lobby” of space that could have easily fit three more people. Suddenly, my smug mood was back again…

The amount of food and “equipment” our family brought on this trip is laughable and, well, just a little bit sad. Our excitement for this trip mixed with our lack of knowledge resulted in over preparation. I groaned internally realizing that instead of leaving with a slightly emptier truck, I just might be leaving with more stuff bound for home. I had brought two air mattresses, one deluxe twin borrowed from my co-worker (thanks Mario!) and one regular twin mattress. I told my roomies, Carissa and Amanda, that one of them wouldn’t have a mattress and to figure out who’s getting what. I got the typical martyred response from Carissa. “It’s fine, whatever.” But Amanda was quick to say, “That’s okay, I’ll take the mattress. I have a bad back.” Carissa incredulously looked at her 21-year-old sister, who is by far in great shape, while I laughed. Typical of those two…

Dinner…Always the Highlight We couldn’t wait for twilight to come because with it brought cooler air and the much anticipated sense of relaxation. Dinner had been prepared ahead of time since cooking pork adobo on a camp fire was dubious, at best. Our first meal had to be a happy one because it had been a long day for all of us weary travelers. Team 1’s dinner didn’t disappoint. Adobo served with rice and green salad with Ranch dressing brought back nostalgia from when we were younger and Mom and Dad would pack us all in the station wagon for an eight-hour roadtrip to L.A. Instead of buying us crap from McDonalds or Burger King, Mom would cook a pot of adobo and a pot of rice and somewhere in the middle of California, we’d find a rest stop and tailgate out of the back of our old Dodge Aspen.

When darkness blanketed the night, we lit the lanterns and armed ourselves with flashlights. Even something as simple as maintaining a lantern could prove to be eventful in our family. We were already nervous about my eldest sister, Belinda, going camping. Although she was the most enthusiastic, she is also the one most prone to accidents when coupled with Mother Nature. Sure enough, because no one thought to brief her on lantern safety, she burned her hand. She unthinkingly grabbed the lantern handle and pulled it away only after hearing her skin sizzle. Our brand new, neatly organized first aid kit was already being utilized five hours upon arriving to the campsite.

With her burn attended to and the call to the medics cancelled, it didn’t take long for us to find ourselves sitting around in a circle twiddling our thumbs wondering what to do next. Cathy went to put Sophia to sleep and we could hear her protesting the tent. “Mama, no tent. Home. Bed,” Sophia demanded. Eventually even the weirdness of sleeping inside a house of nylon wasn’t enough to keep her awake and she drifted asleep. The bros-in-law quickly formed a lopsided poker game, while the rest of us decided to play a round of “Who Am I?”

“Who Am I?” is a game that appealed to us when we saw it played in the movie Inglorious Basterds. It’s simple, really. You take some Post-Its and a pen and everyone writes the name of someone famous, fictional or not, on a piece of paper. Passing your post-it to the person on your right and without them looking at the name, you stick it on your forehead. Everyone but you can see it and you have to ask the group questions to guess whose name is on your head. With entries like Smokey the Bear, Popeye, Andrew Zimmern and everyone in between, we killed a good two hours and a lot of laughs with this game. In the end, Amanda won, correctly guessing Andrew Zimmern of Bizarre Foods fame. And it was Josh who was the last to guess his own identity when we finally had to tell him it was Anne Boleyn. With him asking sharp and intelligent questions like “Did I marry a white guy?”, “How was I killed?” and “Did I marry a king?” we were sure he would get it. But then he guessed Pocahontas and then we knew he would NEVER catch on. To make matters worse, throughout the weekend, his nickname ranged from Pocahantas to Anne to finally Power Puff Girl (his identity in Who Am I? Round 2).

Midnight Calling Luckily, the bathrooms are situated near our campsite but with absolutely no lighted paths, going potty in the middle of the night made us nature novices nervous. Before we retired to bed, Cathy said she was sure that she would need to use the restroom in the middle of the night. Knowing my own pattern, I good naturedly told her to wake me when she goes because I probably will have to go as well. It sounded like a good idea at the time…

I had no clue what time it was when I heard my name being called and a flashlight was being shined on my face through the mesh window of the tent. Distantly, I heard Cathy call my name and pulled myself awake. “Rhodes,” she whispered, “do you have to use the bathroom?” Immediately forgetting my earlier sense of sister comraderie, I turned away from the light and mumbled, “No. Go away.” She whined, “You said you’d come with me.” Realizing right away that I did promise her an escort, and knowing that I would feel really guilty if I found her body in the morning half eaten by a bear, I sighed and agreed to accompany her. I half stumbled to the restroom and was glad that I did because, as expected, nature was calling me. I was just too sleepy to pay attention. The next day when I asked her what time she had woken me up, she said she didn’t know exactly but that the moon was about there and she pointed to an empty space in the sky. Since I have no Native American in me, I have no idea what time that is.

Day 2

Prelude I woke up the next morning to more camping virgin drama. Apparently, while Team 2 was cooking breakfast, the camping stove had caught on fire due to one of the propane tanks leaking gas. By the time I groggily made my way out of the tent, bro-in-law Mel was warning everyone to stand back. Besides his frantic “Everyone get the hell back! Get back!” all I could hear was Carissa’s nervous and somewhat guilty, “Uh oh, Uncle Mel??” Poor Mel had to be the one to pour water onto a burst of flames where bacon and sausage should have been cooking. So much excitement and it wasn’t even 7:30 a.m. yet.

 It rained overnight and it was the unexpected sound of drops hitting the tent that woke me up in the middle of the night. I found it hard to believe that it could be 103 degrees just a few hours earlier and now I was hearing thunder, and witnessing flashes of lightening. By the time daylight rolled around, everything was dry. It was a blessing in disguise to have it overcast on Saturday as it was a nice respite from the heat.

Ad”venturing” Out For the most part and probably due to our genetic makeup of common sense, my family and I tend to shy away from any extreme sports and so rafting and kayaking didn’t really appeal to us as fun activities. Fishing and hiking were the selected adventures for the day. Julia seemed to be excited to try out her brand new Hello Kitty fishing pole and Cathy thought maybe panning for gold would help keep Sophia busy.  So while they went towards the river, the rest of us headed in the other direction, trekking along a three-mile trail that was supposed to have great vista views. The trail began at the Sutter Mill site where apparently gold was first found. We stared curiously at a group of people in period clothing wondering if we should break the news to them that the gold in the American River was long gone and that they should probably venture back to whatever time warp they came from.

After a couple of hours of hiking we headed back to a much more crowded camp than when we left. It was amazing how packed Camp Lotus got on Saturday. We had just gotten used to the idea of not having any neighbors in the surrounding areas when all of a sudden, there wasn’t a single empty campsite in our entire section. Team 3 was preparing an El Pollo Loco lunch and it was nice just to relax and take in the great ourdoors. That afternoon was also when our cousin Boyet, his wife Dudi and their daughter Noelle arrived. Our group of 15 was now complete. We felt like experienced campers having had a head start on them. We all shouted out advice on setting up. “Put your tent here”, “Bathrooms and showers are over there”, or “Make sure you park your car this way and not like that.” We were shameless! LOL!!

Run in With the Neighbors It was clear that one of our oversights was not bringing any board games and hobbies to help pass the time. Boyet and family saved the day by bringing along a volleyball set and we wasted no time in setting it up in our area. The second stake of the net hadn’t yet been pounded into the ground before we heard an irritating voice yelling “Excuse me.”  When we turned around, a soccer mom was marching towards us with a certain look of disapproval on her face.

“I don’t think this is the best place for that”, she had said. “There’s an open field somewhere over on the other side that you can probably use for volleyball,” she said while vaguely waving her hand in a general direction to the left.

Boyet calmly replied, “There’s plenty of room here for us to play and anyway it’s on our campsite.” The soccer mom’s lips were pursed so tightly, she looked like she was sucking on a lemon. She marched off back to her campsite where a straggly collection of kids were running amuck. She must have voiced her displeasure to the other soccer moms and dads because it wasn’t long before her husband came over trying to plead their case. His face looked pained. Like he really didn’t want to talk to us but that life would be more miserable for him if he refused his wife. His half-hearted attempt at getting us to move our net was struck down and he returned back to his camp defeated. We were surprised to find them packing up early the next morning. (People go camping for just one night???) We shamelessly cheered and clapped when they headed to their cars to depart. The dirty looks they threw at us were definitely worth it…

Spike it, Ate! To play volleyball, we split up into teams pretty much based on age. Team Young versus Team Younger. I was happy to be on Team Younger since I’m sort of a ‘tweener if you think about it. So two things surprised me during our volleyball matches. (1) The majority of us can actually play volleyball well with Steven as our secret weapon because of his killer serves; and (2) my family can trash talk to the point where feelings can actually get hurt. Our team (Team Younger: all the nephews and nieces plus me) made it a point to pick on Joe because of his elusiveness in his play. We can’t prove it but he appeared to hit the ball and score all sorts of points. I say appear because we never really saw him do it. He’d hit the ball so subtly and then look away in another direction —- we weren’t sure if he hit the ball at all! We started calling him Sneaky Joe and the name stuck.

Hearing the insults and the goading comments fly back and forth was probably the funnest part of our volleyball matches. On Sunday, the campground manager had to kick us out because we had overstayed our welcome by half an hour. We just had to play one last “to the death” match. It’s amazing how competitive we all got considering it was supposed to be a friendly, very casual game. Steven, by far, was the most into it, roaring commands whenever it looked like we weren’t hustling fast enough to get to the ball. Ashlie’s ears are still ringing from Steven’s thundering “Spike it, Ate!”

Last Night Saturday night was our last night at camp and we made every attempt to make it count. Team 4 prepared a baby back rib dinner with cheesecake and s’mores for dessert. It was a little later in the evening when we were finally wrapped up with our meal and sitting around the campfire. Before we could launch into another round of “Who Am I?,” Julia made it known that she didn’t like that game because she wouldn’t be able to play. So we decided to play a game of Concentration, a round-robin type game where each person must recite a word in the order of the alphabet (i.e. a is for apple, b is for banana, c is for cherry, etc.). Julia was doing really well with the categories we chose such as fruits and animals. Then we decided to do places. And when the patern cycled back to her and he letter was “n,” she was stuck. Carissa, who was sitting next to her, whispered loudly, “N is for Naples.” Julia smiled and on rhythm with our clapping, promptly repeated, “N is for nipples!” We were laughing so hard, we had to end the game.

The campfire seemed to have a life of its own, not wanting to stay alive for any given amount of time. Earlier in the day, we were all instructed to gather enough twigs to keep the fire going, but it wasn’t long before it dwindled away anyway. Boyet made a last ditch effort to dig up what he could from some nearby brush with only a flashlight to light his path. He came back thoughtfully holding some twigs and a leaf. He suddenly wondered out loud, “How many leaves does poison oak have?” Without missing a beat, we all replied in unison, “Three!” By the way he quickly dropped the greenery, we assumed it had three points on it…

The Verdict You can probably tell by now that I had more fun than I thought I would on my first ever camping expedition. There were a lot of misconceptions in my pocket when I decided to join the group for the weekend. I truly thought I was going to be miserable, dirty, tired and dead bored. Well, of that laundry list, I probably only felt dirty and that was because you can’t really smell like roses when you insist on sleeping on dirt. I enjoyed sleeping in a tent on an air mattress and a sleeping bag. I liked hearing the crickets when the day turned into night and the eerie quiet that surrounds you when you first open your eyes in the morning. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to “rough it” in the woods with nothing but an outhouse and some leaves, but I definitely have a better appreciation for Mother Nature. Next year, maybe Yosemite. I heard they have cabins…

Thanks for reading about our misadventure! Feel free to leave a comment. I’ll be posting pictures soon.