A Vacation Story: The Bad

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this journey, we don't vacation well.  The morning of the day we were leaving, I woke up with a stopped up nose and a sore throat.  I had hoped it was just a sleeping with my mouth open all night problem, but nerp.  I had an itchy, running like a faucet, sneezy nose the entire time we were there.  Do you think I took any Kleenex?  No.  I had to use napkins.  I looked like Rudolph.

The weather.  You can't really predict the weather you are going to have more than a week-ish out, but it was like Mother Nature was playing a seriously cruel joke.  The days leading up to arrival were hot, but pleasant enough.  The day we left was the most beautiful day I have seen all Summer.  The four days we were there?  Hot.  Heat index in the 100F+ mark, every day.  Temperatures themselves were in the high 90's.  Plus there were chances of at least 40% of rain and/or thunderstorms.  You know it stormed.  If you didn't already guess that the rain cover on the tent leaked, you haven't been following along.  The Vacation Gods hate us.

Every time Chris would try to go fish, it would start to rain.  Camping + rain + toddler = no fun.  Trying to keep her cooped up in that tent was not the most exciting thing.  Yes, that is an arm floatie in my face.  She wanted to go swim. Which we were only able to do one time because... weather.

Bridges.  I'm terrified of large bridges.  There are two bridges here.  One over Lake Barkley/Cumberland River and, the one pictured, over Kentucky Lake/Tennessee River.  This particular bridge is called the Eggner's Ferry bridge and is currently under construction because a barge hit it and destroyed two portions.  In the second photo you can see the repaired portion because it's a different color than the rest.  I mentioned it was still under construction right?  Because I am terrified of bridges of this size... again the Universe was like, "Hey y'all!  Watch this!", and told the construction workers it would be HILARIOUS to stop the traffic (already down to one lane) in the middle of the damn bridge!!!

While not exactly part of the "Bad" category, the Golden Pond Planetarium wasn't on the "Good" list either.

As evidenced by the looks on my kids faces, not the best experience.  They have different shows throughout the day and I chose one that I thought would be a good mix for us all.  I thought it was going to be about the different constellations in the current seasons sky.  And it was, to some extent, but they really should have mentioned a target age group for the different shows.  This show was clearly not meant for adults or older kids.  Also it only covered a couple of the constellations.  The demonstration of the laser lights at the end was better than the actual show.  Overall, we were not impressed.  Thank goodness it only cost $18.

The coup de grâce came on Monday.  While we were out perusing the animals, the animals were perusing our campsite.  Particularly, squirrels.

The squirrels at Land Between the Lakes have a serious hot cocoa addiction.  This is a regular hot cocoa container made of cardboard with a metal bottom and plastic lid.  It was inside our tent on the table with the rest of our food stuffs.  They also took out the majority of a loaf of bread.

But how did they get inside the tent, you say?  For your viewing pleasure...

That's right.  The cocoa-crackhead squirrels CHEWED A HOLE THROUGH THE TENT to get to the cocoa that was all closed up and minding it's own business!!  What's even better than all this is that I had to pick up squirrel shit from all over our bed because in their effort to escape the scene of the crime, they also tried to chew a hole through one of the windows next to the bed.  They were not successful in that plan, but did manage to get their cute little raisinette crap all over our bed.

Originally we had planned on going swimming the morning we were to check out because check out time isn't until 3:30pm, but that night is rained.  Again.  And on top of everything else that had gone wrong...

Broken zipper.  BROKEN ZIPPER!!

We were up, packed, and on the road in an hour and half the next day.  On the most beautiful day of the year.  The most camping worthy day.  All we wanted to do was get the hell out of that place!