While setting up camp, there was a dispute about who was staying in what tent. Brian and his girlfriend brought their own tent, a 3 person tent that, with squeezing, could fit 4. Cezanna brought the family tent, a 6 person tent. She had room for her whole family, but wanted Brian to house me and my little sister as well. My brother and I have always gotten along a lot better than any of our other siblings, and when this came up, he welcomed me in, but refused Jaella. Cezanna did not like this. She expressed her feelings that Brian was being a drama queen, which Cimara, her 3 year old daughter, quickly picked up, and started taunting Brian with.
Eventually, we got the living arrangements settled and everyone cooled off, literally and emotionally, at the lake just down the way. We swam around for about an hour until it got dark. During this time, my brother apparently dove too deep into the lake and hit his head a little too hard on the rocky bottom. He would find out six months later that he obliterated his skull, fracturing the left half completely. He learned this, ironically, as pieces of his skull starting to fall into his college anatomy book... In the section on the skull.
Back at the camp site, we started a fire. Since we were staying in a state park, we couldn't go collect firewood, we had to buy it, and we couldn't make our own fire pit, we had to keep it inside a small metal fire ring, since the area was under a constant fire ban. The camp site we got, however, had a large fire pit made of rocks, from the last family camping there. We decided to use the bigger one, since we had a lot of people to sqeeze around it. We also decided to shake off the other rule while we were at it, by cutting off small branches of one of the trees (one of the 10 trees in the entire park, it seemed like). When our parents stopped by for a short visit, my stepdad, Cezanna's boyfriend, Brian and I went over to the tree on our lot a cut off a huge dead limb that was already partly detached, and used it for firewood. Little did we know, we wouldn't be able to burn the entire branch in one night.
The next morning, we packed up bright and early. We put the fire out thoroughly and packed the car. We were just leaving as a park officer pulled up, pulling us over at the same time. He brought up the fact that we A. shouldn't have a separate fire pit, and B. were illegally burning state property. Andy, Cezanna's boyfriend, brought up the fact that the fire pit was already there when we arrived and also lied and said that the limb was found down the hill on the ground. The officer, the kind man that he was, told Brian and Andy to pick up the rocks from the fire pit, the ones that were still scalding hot, and move them away from the pit, and wrote them a hefty ticket for damaging state property. When we got home, Andy and Brian had 2nd degree burns all over their hands. The story reached my mom, who in turn, called the state park to make a complaint. When I say complaint, note that the term is used loosely. We all learned a lesson that day, and that was that if my mom wants to make someone's life hell, she can. But if you hurt her children, she will.
We also learned that the officer who gave us the ticket was just out of training and giving his first ticket. My mother yelled and screamed and even used the "Do you have children? How would you like it if someone made your children pick up scalding hot rocks?" line on the secretary at the state park. Needless to say, we got pictures of Brian and Andy's hands, which were sent to the guy in charge. Also needless to say, that was our last camping trip for a while.
(Artwork done by Daniel Moffet)
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