Travelin' With The Kid

02 June

Journeys in Our Own Backyard: Learning Moments and Oh Baby Camping

At our house we have a saying that each moment is an opportunity to learn something. It’s been a great idea to carry through each day. Recently we headed out on the dusty trail to camp in one of our favorite places to paddle, Clifty Creek, which feeds Grayson Lake in the fine state of Kentucky. It was the first time we had the kayaks on the roof of the car and the sleeping bags packed in the trunk of the car. Two nights in the cool May weather before the humid midwest heat ascends. We were looking forward to some very cool moments......

The campground was filled with families, young and old. All campsites had kids, then the folks who reserved the site next to us, less than 30 yards away arrived, a young couple, clearly newly married. They waved and set up camp. Dinner and jiffy pop over the campfire was uneventful and fun. We hit the sack early as we were going to try to capture on film the mist on the creek early when at 2AM, I was awakened by very loud moaning and “Oh Baby!”. Not quite sure I could believe what I was hearing, it continued, for another ten minutes. Just then, I heard the voice of The Kid ask “WHAT is THAT?” Now every kid imagines axe murderers in the woods when you camp, I know I did when I was a kid, or monsters or anything else scary -- so I didn’t want to say “Someone is dying” - because it did sound that way - the kid wouldn’t want to camp anymore. On the other hand, telling him that someone was, well you know, as my mom would say, diddlin’....was not a good choice either. As I have always tried to let The Kid arrive at his own conclusions, I said, “well I was going to tell you that someone was dying, but it’s what you think it is. Being a typical healthy 15 year old, there was no response as the noises continued uncomfortably now --for me, for another 10 minutes. Then in one of the moments of dark silence came The Kid’s voice “why didn’t you just tell me someone was being killed -- jeeze...An interesting learning moment, but for who?”

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