Shortest camping trip on record

The first camping trip of the season always seems to take the longest when it comes to packing.  All the bedding that's been sitting over the winter needs washing, the spring cleaning of the trailer and the endless packing for 17 plus people and a couple of dogs is never ending.  Once packed the bedding and clothing stays in the trailer for the season only coming out for washing and directly returned for the next trip, which makes it so much easier for subsequent trips.  For food we have the kitchen stocked with the basics and we cycle through the same menu each camping trip which makes for less planning and prep work as I know the trailer has everything needed to prepare the meals.

We often camp up the island about 3 hours away, near where our son and his family live and one of our daughters is working for the summer which makes it easier for them to join us.  Fortunately provincial camping is no charge for families with disabled individuals so an activity that can be expensive is accessible to us.  Also the campground that we frequent has accessible washrooms and showers which is a huge benefit.

Our first camping trip of the season also became the shortest camping trip on record for us.  We arrived around 7pm as one thing after another seemed to slow us down preparing for this trip.  Our son and his family, and daughter met us there and we got set up.  The younger children and our granddaughter had fun playing soccer, which really means all 8 each had a ball and they were kicking them everywhere which was like a game of dodgeball for all the adults, while setting up camp.  After the younger crowd went to bed we sat around our "propane" camp fire, no real fires due to extreme drought conditions causing a burning ban.  At about 11 the clouds decided to taunt us and suddenly let go, raining down on us for a couple minutes.  Enough time for us to decide its bedtime and get the chairs put away.  Over the night we didn't have any rain until just before we got up and then we had torrential downpours.  We decided that camping in the rain wasn't going to work and packed up before breakfast.  Years ago when we had a different crowd we would tough it out in the rain sitting under tarps playing cards but that wouldn't work with this crowd.

The fortune part of this extremely short camping trip is after everthing is dried out we will be ready for the next trip and with the rain maybe next time we will be allowed a real campfire.