Cindi's story

It was the last big holiday weekend of the summer, LABOR DAY! A group of our friends decided to go camping at the Water Gap. It is normally a lovely place, quiet and picturesaque. Well, to start with, NJ State Parks dole out campsites on a first come, first serve basis. Though one would think this fair, it just adds to the frenzy of site setup on holidays. In my opinion, a reservation system would be much better, but I digress..... It happened that a friend, Mike and I both had to work that day and would not be able to join our friends until very late, around 11pm. Our respective spouses had set off early that day to get the campsites. We arrived around 11:30pm, and pulled into the large field of campsites. It looked like a series of brownstones. Campsites elbow to elbow, lanterns flickering in a modern day row home style of sites. How would we find our site? Our families....there must have been 1,000 people jammed together here..... This was not looking good. Suddenly, I spied my husband walking down the road. Eureka! A small break!! He came to the van, knowing what I was thinking when I saw this mass of humanity shoved together.... "Hi Honey", he said, eyes cast anywhere but at mine.... He was right, I was not happy. But, determined to make the best of it, I grabbed my first cup of camp coffee, greeted all my friends and went to bed about 1am. At 5:40 in the morning, some Waco refugee was firing off his duck gun attempting to get 5 or six hound dogs to chase some floating thing into the water. This continues until almost 7am when the police located him and advised him via bullhorn to cease and desist. Happily rolling over to get some well earned sleep, I return to my pillow. At 7:30 the infant in the campsite next to ours decides he will arise. Loudly. Well, all hope of sleep gone, I get up. Make coffee and breakfast. At 10am, we hear a buzzing sound, looking up, we saw an ultralite aircraft buzzing across the field.....it was interesting to see. It was a lot less interesting at2pm that afternoon, when the3rd or 4th hundreth craft flew by. I wanted Waco's gun. It was a beautiful afternoon. So naturally all of the weekend fathers had their sons out in the middle of the field doing guy things. This weekend it was rockets. This particular group fired off no less than 60 of these family fun tubes. Sounded to me like a mortar attack. Sleep deprived, grumpy, not liking anything with the word 'family' in it, I decided to make dinner early and try to relax. About7pm all dishes done, food away, we all sit down. BOOM BOOM BOOM...fireworks..... The demilitarized zone of New Jersey. I looked at my husband, who got up, got my car keys, kissed me and said, I'll see you Tuesday. I got up, bid a fond farewell to Danang and proceded to drive home, for 4 hours, in the cool, guiet solitude of my car. Listening only to the sounds of my CD player.....ahhhhh camping.....