I am a person whose life has always been like a Jackie Chan fight sequence, something comes at me, react, and moves. It is really all I know. It is the reason why I thrive on chaos. Plan nothing and jump, it has always proved to be interesting.
On December 8, 2022, I booked a weekend away. Now it would happen. I was planning for a change. These days, even campgrounds reserve out for the better part of a year. The recklessly spontaneous anomaly like myself does not stand a chance. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em", isn't that the saying?
I am here to tell you, it does not work. I booked Thursday through Sunday at Pillsbury State Park in Washington New Hampshire, then just 2 days later, over to Winhall Brook Campground in South Londonderry Vermont for 6 days.
Just after midnight on July 10th, the skies opened up and dumped an unprecedented amount of rain on central Vermont. No hurricane, no tropical storm. Just rain, to the 10th power.
The next day, I received an email from Recreation.gov, that Winhall Brook was destroyed by 30-foot-deep flood waters, again. Just like Hurricane Irene in 2011, just like the flood of 1989. I was very sad to see this because I have always wanted to camp at Winhall on the last weekend they were open. Winhall is in a severe valley with the West River at the base. I have always known that the leaves in full color must be spectacular.
Well, at least there is Pillsbury. Somewhere along the way my youngest son's wisdom teeth appointment got scheduled for the day we booked that trip. I gave it a real effort knowing that I would have to go on ahead and my wife could join me in a couple of days and I would see if I could extend our stay until Tuesday. When he got home and I saw how rough shape he was in, I could not do it. I canceled the reservation...and then there were none.
This means that with the time I took off from work, I can now get away from working on cars, and the house, and firewood to working on cars, and the house, and firewood.
Admittedly, I feel a little guilty that I am excited to get some things done. I want to complete projects and I never have the time to do that. I can only hope that somewhere here, I can find a reward for blowing off much-needed downtime. Looking for a return on investment. With that in mind, I woke up Friday morning, and it was raining on a day that was not really forecast to do so.
What makes it all worth it? I slept on the couch last night...Well, sleep is not exactly what that was. But at 1:15, 4:15, and 7:45 I got up to wake Noah so he could take pain medication and antibiotics. It felt good to be needed by my youngest son, who is so independent. Not that I like seeing him down. No, that is something I do not deal with so well. The pediatric ICU in February - March of 2009 and June 2010 carries with it feelings and stress that have a hair trigger for me. That will always water me down.
Throughout the night, I could tell, he was grateful for his Dad who came in and made sure that everything just happened to keep him on the mend. He has a lot of support from everywhere, from his mom who drove him to multiple appointments and cared for him through all of this process to our neighbors who already had needed medical items at our house waiting for him to arrive home.
This once again goes to prove my point that "Germans love David Hasselhoff" and that try as we might, my family is not very successful at planning. Overall, I am okay with that.
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