Camping With “The Six Pack” – Part 1

This past weekend was a pretty good weekend for my group of friends. Last summer we created a “Bucket List” of things we wanted to do together, camping was one of them. Fortunately, one of Betsy’s co-workers had a cabin down near French Lick, IN. So on Friday evening, we packed up two cars and drove down there.

Friday Night
Friday night was pretty chill. We ended up leaving later than anticipated because of Chad’s lack of timeliness… ha ha! I had bought a pair of two-way radios from Fry’s Electronics, so it was fun being able to communicate car-to-car. Me, Faith, and Betsy were in one car while Andrew, Chad, and Stephanie were in the other car. The trip was fairly uneventful and we made it down there in about three-and-a-half hours.

We had a hard time finding the cabin at first, but we eventually found it. We took the time to turn on the water and unpack. Afterward, we sat around talking until it was time for bed.

Saturday
Because we had worked hard all week, we had decided that it’d be cool to sleep in on Saturday. I personally woke up at least three times during the night… which sucked, but I guess I had a hard time sleeping. The girls helped prepare a breakfast consisting of pancakes, scrambled eggs (with bits of green onion and tomatoes), muffin wedges, strawberries, and grapes, it was awesome.

After breakfast we went to work deciding what we were going to do for the day. It was decided that we would go hiking at Hemlock Cliffs, which is part of the Hoosier National Forest. It was a pretty sweet hike for only being a two-mile loop. We went off trail several times, mostly following Chad, as we explored the cliffs! Faith lightened the mood by singing camp songs that she learned at Spring Hill, including The Moose Song, it goes a little like this…

There was a great big moose
Who liked to drink a lot of juice
There was a great big moose
Who liked to drink a lot of juice

Singing whoa-oh-oh-oh
Way-oh way-oh way-oh way-oh
Way-oh, way-oh!
Way-oh way-oh way-oh way-oh

Chad was having lots of fun exploring the different cliffs. We finally found a nice little area to sit down and to have a snack, drink, and a group picture. It started to sprinkle, but it was a welcoming rain, as we were getting hot. Later in the hike, Chad found a fairly steep cliff and ended up finding a cave. Me, getting bored waiting for him to come down, decided to go up and take a look at the cave that Chad had found. Stupid me. As I began to inch down into the cave, my foot slipped and I fell a few feet. Fortunately I wasn’t hurt and my camera was still intact, I climbed out and headed back down to the others to find that I was bleeding below my elbow. After washing off my little wound in the creek, Betsy put a band-aid on it and we were back on our way… this is where it gets interesting.

As we wrapped up our hike, we hopped into Andrew’s Jeep. As he turned on the engine, we realized that his gas gauge was on “Empty.” I further clarified this by looking at the heads-up display that said, “0 Gallons to Empty.” I fired up my GPS and located the nearest gas station… over 10 miles away.

Andrew made every effort to coast when possible to conserve fuel. This plan went a little awry when a turkey ran out in front of our Jeep as we were heading down the hill. Andrew hit the brakes and the turkey flew off, unharmed. The thing that sucked is that we were driving through country roads past very redneck-looking places. We finally made it to IN-37 and headed south towards the gas station which was still 5-7 miles away. I really didn’t think we were going to make it and my fears got worse when we passed a sign that said, “Prison Area: Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers.”

“Great, as if God could be teasing us anymore,” we said to ourselves. So Stephanie grabbed the MP3 player and turned it to Bon Jovi’s song, “Livin’ On a Prayer.” Fortunately for us, the gas station came into sight and we made it in. Once Andrew finished refilling, we noticed that he had filled up his 20 gallon tank with over 19.9 gallons of fuel… we BARELY made it to the gas station. PHEW! Bullet dodged.

That, my friends, is a story that we will never forget. We made it back to the cabin where Faith, Chad, and Betsy decided to go on a short run while Stephanie, Andrew, and I got our showers out of the way. Saturday night was a great night to just sit back and read a book as dinner was being prepared.

Stephanie really took the lead on preparing dinner and we had a TON of food to eat: hamburgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob, macaroni salad, cole slaw, baked beans, diced potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and so much more. It was a great meal and it was great to share it with awesome friends.

To be continued…