Snapfish and Ditch take Cloudland Canyon State Park

July 1, 2007, this was the official start date of the big cross-country adventure. The day before was when Sara and I left West Palm for Gainesville to see Katie. We don’t really count that day because we’ve driven that drive before and there wasn’t any exciting adventures because we crashed at Katie’s house. Maybe I shouldn’t say “crashed”, scratch that and let’s go with “slept” as we’ll utilize “crash” more appropriately in the future.

We awoke early in the morning to gather our things, buy some groceries and head out on the open road as this was going to be one of our longest driving days, about 7.5 hours. The drive was long and boring as we trekked our way through the great state of Georgia en route to Cloudland Canyon State Park in the northwest corner. Nothing too exciting on the drive unless you want to count when we had some torrential rainfall down from the heavens and “literally rain on our parade.” A little background information…we have a travel cargo bag strapped to our roof rack and she’s a biggie. Considering that both Sara and me are massive dufuses, we decide that she needed a name and dubbed her “Large Marge.” So when you hear that name, no we didn’t pick up some random hitchhiker, it’s the big girl we strapped to the roof!

Now, in order to keep Marge from flying away from us and to keep the roof rack bars in place, we have these industrial tie down straps that run through the car. They work great but there’s one problem, when it rains, water finds its way through, saturates the strap and allows Sara and I to take a random shower. It’s good stuff kids, good stuff. We laugh our asses off and hold towels by the window in an ill-fated attempt to stay dry. Hey, when Marge gets wet, we get wet. (I’m going with words like “wet” and “damp” as Sara doesn’t like the word “moist.” I use the word anyway because I think it’s funny and she makes a face at me every time I say it.)

Another tangent, sorry, Sara’s ADD must be rubbing off on me…back to the camping…
We arrived at the park in time to check in and purchase a few odds and ends at the main office. They tell us where to find our site, inform us that it’s supposed to rain for a few more hours and let us know that we’ll be locked in the park as of 10:00 pm because they close and lock the gates. Oh, and all those who kept freaking about potential rapists, thanks. Now that you have all freaked about it, you have caused Sara to have a heightened sense of paranoia.

Finally, we arrive and begin the task of setting up camp. The tent is up and we decide that since it’s raining, we’ll just chill until it stops. The sleeping bags are set up and we make ourselves comfortable as we begin noticing that there is water in our tent. Wherever the tent is not taut, water has seeped through and things are getting wet. The solution, we brought the folding chairs in and rigged it to avoid any further water intrusion. I pass in and out of consciousness listening to the rain, which finally stops. Sara gets up and announced to me that now that the rain has stopped she was going to “assess the situation” and prepare some dinner. Bless her heart, she wanted to let me take a little nap and she decided to do things on her own.
I was lying in the tent when I heard a car start and I thought to myself “Is Sara moving the car?” Indeed she was my friend, indeed she was. We had pulled into the campsite and she was going to back the car in so that we could have some easier access. I went to get up and help her when “KUNK KUNK”. I looked out and saw the car over where the campsite pole was and I thought “Oh shit.” But then she tries to pull forward to get away from the pole when “KER-KUNK-KLUNK.”

Sara gets out of the car where I ask “Did you just hit the pole?” and she quickly responds, “Oh, it’s much worse.” These were my thoughts at that ‘Shit, oh fuck, shit, shit, shit. Yes my friends, Sara has driven into a ditch and can’t get out. A few guys quickly come to our aid after they heard the crash and quickly formulate a plan to get us out. It wasn’t a major ditch, but the dirt was really wet and it made it harder to get out. I asked Sara if we should document the event with some pictures and we both laugh and decide that pictures will be the perfect touch.

So I’m taking pictures and see that the front right tire is in the ditch and the back left tire isn’t even touching the ground. In my infinite wisdom, I stand by the ditch and try to take a picture of the tire because it was a beauty. Wet sand gives way and I begin sliding down the ditch and hit the ground hard on my ass and continue sliding. All I could think was “save the camera,” so I put my right hand in the air and put my left hand down as I slid. When I came to a rest, about two feet down, all I could do was laugh because of the humor of the entire situation.

The kind men got the car out of the ditch and I began cleaning my hand as I noticed the new arrival of blood and the departure of some skin. I had some gravel lodged in some of the cuts and tried to clean it the best I could. It was ultra sensitive as all scrapes like that are and I couldn’t bring myself to do, I decided that some antiseptic ointment was the way to go…we had none. We have just about everything but in our first aid kit. I walked over to our neighbor’s campsite and inquired as to whether he might have some. This was the same guy that helped us get out of the ditch, so I figured why not right?

He took a look and told me “Honey, you need to get that stuff out of there or you could get all kinds of dirty things.” So, his daughter brought out the first aid kit and the painful cleaning process began. Antiseptic wipes were applied (OUCH by the way) but the gravel wasn’t coming out. Out came a camping knife (no further details necessary here) and then there was no more gravel. Another cleaning, the application of antiseptic ointment and a band-aid to seal the deal. I know the whole knife thing sounds gross and scary, but it was more like when you get a nasty splinter, the skin was only superficially exposed, nothing deep.

We made some really yummy dinner consisting of chicken, baked potatoes and green beans. Yummy. Tonight we’re getting some beer because we think we deserve it. How’s that for a first day kids? Thought you’d like it.

We’ll try to keep up with the blog as much as possible, but it may be a few days between posts as we don’t always have an internet connection. We’ll keep them up to date, but will probably have to post a few at a time to stay on track. Later my peeps, we’re in Mississippi and I need to keep an eye out for the road that leads to our next park, Holly Springs National Forest. Good times. :D