Danish Camping

After a long 2 weeks of pretty steady work, we arrived at our campsite on Thurs afternoon with high hopes and huge, homemade marshmallows. The tent went up quickly and we were happy to see that the rustic end of Lake Wabasis Campground was pretty deserted, except for us and one small family. Our expectations began to change, however, as rumbles of thunder and a sudden, short downpour convinced us to explore the surrounding towns with a short drive. To Dave's delight, this little excursion led to the discovery of a Starbucks and so we "officially" started our camping adventure with a decaf soy latte (Erika's choice).

We returned to the campsite and found plenty of semi-dry firewood for the weekend, and also discovered that some "neighbors" had pitched their tent in the woods. Our campfire dinner was delicious and the gigantic s'mores were fantastic! It was also a blessing that our camping neighbors went to bed early, probably tired out from shouting obscenities at each other throughout the evening.

The next morning Erika went for a Danish dip in the lake, and all was still quiet as we left our little campsite and headed to the Danish Festival (one of only 8 Denmark-themed festivals in the US). The crowded main street included two booths that seemed to fit the bill. One sold Danish souvenirs, the other sold a version on Aebelskiver (the Danish "pancake ball"). We walked all over the town looking at the occasional Danish flag, and searching for something that might remind Erika of her visits to Denmark. At last we sat down to watch the children's parade. Little kids dressed like up as fairytale characters (a la Hans Christian Andersen)--and some dressed like superheros--walked, ran, biked, and powerwheeled along behind a volunteer band in red vests and black knickers. The parade was followed by a mildly entertaining "Princess and the Pea" bed race in which teams pushed hospital gurneys up and down the road. We did not find Tivoli Gardens or the Danish cuisine that we had hoped for, but it was nice day to be outside and it was fun for Dave to hear about Erika's memories of Denmark.

Back at the campsite, we were looking forwarding to using our campfire popcorn-popper, and we were wondering if our fellow campers had discovered any new ways to drop "The F-Bomb." We arrived at our campsite to a mixed blessing. Our noisy neighbors were keeping pace with the previous evening's tirades, but now their voices were mixing with three other raucous groups to form an indistinct background chatter of profane language, which was somehow less distracting. While the cursing, swearing, and shouting of our new, younger neighbors helped in that way, we eventually discovered that they also had a much later bedtime.

We dismissed the idea of waking up at dawn and preparing a very loud breakfast, but we did make a very good-smelling breakfast (take that!) before we packed up our tent and headed out (just as we began to hear our neighbors waking up and complaining about headaches).

Despite the crazy evenings, God did bless us with good sleeping, good eating, and good hiking on some short yet beautiful trails that helped us to clear our heads and relax after our "vacation."