Friday May 23

Up at 7 a.m. to get ready for a trip south to attend Great-Grandson's high school graduation tonight. We decided to take the camper and spend a couple of days at a campground about 15 minutes from the high school where the graduation ceremony would take place.

We were on the on the road by 9 a.m. Hubbie drove the truck/camper, while I drove the van, so Mother could be comfortable traveling.

As we approached the stop light at the intersection of the highway, I noticed the camper right hand brake light was not working. I'd forgotten to my cell phone on, so when we turned onto the four lane, I raced up beside him and waved to indicate we needed to pull off to our favorite auto shop, which was close by.

It didn't take long for one of the shop guys to discover the problem...a wire that wasn't making good contact...so we were back on the road by 9:30.

After that, it was an uneventful trip to the campground about an hour and a half away. We arrived around 11 a.m., and Hubbie began set-up in the reserved drive-through space. I wasn't all that happy with the space, which was the last one on the end of the drive-through spaces, located on the campground road, and right across from the now-defunct dump station.

I didn't see how we could entertain family in a no-yard space, and I feared having children there who might run into the road. But I needn't have worried, because once Hubbie had the the camper set up, he tried to let the slide out out. But there wasn't enough room between the slide out and the utility post.

Oh my gosh, was Hubbie frustrated! This meant he had to go all through the process again...getting the camper ready to hook up to the truck, moving the camper about a foot over, and setting it up again.

At this point, since it was close to noon, and Hubbie was pouring sweat, I suggested we have lunch before he began the take-down-set-up process again.

After lunch, a neighboring camper suggested that we look for a more accommodating site, rather than set up where we were. He said any space that was open would be fine to move to. So I made a swing around the campground and found one with a bit more real estate for setting up lawn chairs. There is really no great view anywhere in the campground, but at least this one looked out over a wooded area across the street, instead of an abandoned dump station.

This one was a back-in site, which is not Hubbie's favorite, but he had no trouble backing into it. We were finally set up around 2 p.m.

While he worked on setting up, Mother and I drove around the small campground. There was laughable playground....just a small square of gravel with a child-size basketball goal, a basketball, a metal truck, and a beach ball, along with a porch swing for parents to sit in. The sign near it warns that children should not run in the playground.

This campground is not known for its amenities. For instance, there is no office...it's operated on the honor system. Folks are expected to be honest and deposit campsite fees in a box situated in a building that houses the showers, bathrooms, laundry, and a sort of recreation room.

I found the recreation room to be quite adequate for a family-gathering picnic on Saturday. And it was air-conditioned...a definite plus.

The large sign on the front of the building was humorous, though: one rule states that fishing and swimming are not allowed in the campground. Nowhere at this facility is there a body of water, not even in the ditch, though later a family member saw a worm crawling there, undoubtedly blatantly unafraid of becoming bait.

No one was at the building, of course, to provide me with the campground wi-fi password. I tried calling the campground information phone number, but got no answer. So Hubbie visited that neighboring camper again, and he provided it.

Back at the campsite, Hubbie complained that there seemed to be no water hookup at the site. Every site had an above ground old-fashioned hand-operated pump that didn't work. Hubbie was pretty disgusted, but soon he discovered that there was a faucet under a lid on the ground. Finally, we were in business.

Except the air conditioner proceeded to drip water, which indicated it was freezing up. So we had to turn it off and on periodically to allow it to thaw

It had been a pretty frustrating day for Hubbie so far, so he was ready to crash. Mother was tired, too, just from the trip, so they were both ready for a nap. While they slept, I played on my tablet and read my novel, now that I had the password. The wi-fi signal was pretty weak, though...only two bars on my tablet.. so I couldn't get my e-mail. But I was able to access my social network page.

Hubbie woke up about an hour later. We decided to go see if we could find some fresh strawberries. Mother roused a little, enough for us to tell her we would be gone for a little while. We did not succeed in finding strawberries, though, so we were back at camp within the hour.

Mother was still asleep. In fact, she slept until suppertime, around 5 p.m. Tonight, I heated Dragon Soup, which we had with blueberry muffins.

Later, around 6:15 p.m., Hubbie and I went to a home improvement store parking lot to meet Son, Daughter-in-Law, and Great-Grandsons, so we could all travel to the high school parking lot. Since we were too early to meet with family, we looked around the store for a while.

We were all ready to head to the school by 7:50. We were early enough to get parking spaces fairly close to the football field, where the ceremony took place.

We brought along our stadium seats and three stadium cushions for seating, since sitting on bleachers for more than two hours would be very uncomfortable without them. Hubbie and I used the seats, and Son and Daughter-in-Law used the cushions.

We were seated about halfway down the bleachers, which was a good place for taking pictures of the ceremony with my long lens. Unfortunately, though, a family seated behind us talked, talked, talked all through the ceremony, so that we had difficulty hearing the speakers. They couldn't even bring themselves to hush during the prayer.

They were not the only rude folks present. Some others brought along air horns, which they blew vigorously when their graduate received his or her diploma. Then toward the end of the ceremony, folks began rushing the field. This was a very rude crowd. Have manners and decorum completely died?

We waited a few minutes after the ceremony and then went down to the field, too, where we took pictures and visited. Then we headed home. We got back to camp near 10 p.m.

Mother was awake and ready for a snack, after which she was ready to head to bed. I put drops in her eyes, and then she got into her jammies. We were all ready to hit the sack...it was a long day, and we were all tired.