Campfire stories...

We had a fabulous time over the weekend at Buckhorn, a church camp in the mountains overlooking Fort Collins. We left chickens tucked into their coop and new, bigger run (which they don't like any better than the previous run), rats with plenty of food, and a dismayed Sunny at the boarding kennel Friday afternoon, and drove 45 minutes up a gorgeous mountain canyon to Foothills UU Church's annual family camp. After our rainy camping trip a few weeks ago, we decided to stay in a cabin. They were very rustic, but had indoor plumbing and a fireplace that looked better than it performed (Steve lit a fire in it Saturday night, and we ended up opening the cabin windows to safeguard against carbon monoxide poisoning, or at least throat irritation.)

The setting was gorgeous, on the shoulder of a mountain with a view far across the plains. We could see the lights of Fort Collins at night and watched several gorgeous storms drift over that flat, green sea at various times during the weekend.

Among the highlights of the weekend -- a massive game of capture the flag in the pine forest (I worried through the whole thing about twisted ankles and impaled runners, but there was only one mild middle-aged injury -- not mine -- and I was very pleasantly surprised to wake up the next morning not particularly sore). There were also s'mores around the campfire, a drumming circle, group sings, a brief plein-air service Sunday morning, and an exciting, unscheduled exploration of a cave near the fishing pond with some of the tween-aged kids.

Camp food was cafeteria fare, but at least it gave the kids a taste, so to speak, of some of what they're missing, or not, as homeschoolers. It's funny how much we all watched the clock for meal times, even knowing they were going to be less-than-spectacular.

There was a fun group sing Saturday night, followed by a Buckhorn tradition -- To Tell The Truth. Campers submit one true and unusual story about themselves, then two "liars" are recruited, and the panels are put before the audience for questions and a vote on who is the true tale-teller. Steve and I were both asked to be liars; I demurred because I thought it would be too stressful but Steve happily agreed, though he didn't tell me what his story was going to be.

So he sat there on stage Saturday night and, along with a middle-aged Dad with a bit of a beer gut and a slightly stocky young woman with a very serious face, repeated "I worked my way through college as a stripper." Lord, and there I was in the front row of the audience, trying to keep a straight face myself and not give it away. Guess who the audience believed was the real stripper? Yep. I hope he feels flattered by it. (It was the other Dad, believe it or not...)

Each night the members of the board game group got together and convened board and card games for the other campers, but I slept so poorly on the bunkbeds that I didn't dare stay up too late gaming (also, our cabin, like all of them, was a duplex with 3 young kids staying on the other side -- and considering that we could see the other family's lights through the chinks in the common log wall, we were awakened as soon as the little ones tumbled out of bed at dawn and started exclaiming.)

By Sunday afternoon, we were tired and very happy, and we drove down the mountain for home, ready to liberate chickens and dog and relax a bit. In that strange way in which life sometimes imitates art (how many times does the main character have a peak experience only to have tragedy strike immediately afterward?), we came home to bad news on the message machine. Judith, Steve's mom, was having chest pains and being evaluated in the local hospital. As the evening progressed, she was transported to Des Moines, where she had another angina attack, which was determined to be a heart attack. This morning, she had angioplasty and a stent inserted and she's now resting and recovering. They're terming it a mild-to-moderate heart attack, and it's a blessing she had such strong symptoms and heeded them quickly. Steve will be heading to Iowa later in the week, once she's been discharged, to help her get settled at home. My folks will be arriving over the weekend for a long-anticipated visit. I'm still reeling a bit from the emotional rollercoaster of it all and hoping for a quick and strong recovery for Judith.

I'll post photos from the trip shortly...