It was circa 1995 and I was approaching the last of my high school years when me and several of my friends decided it would be great to go on a camping trip to the beach. I loved camping, my family was very much into it, but we had never camped at a campsite or anywhere near the beach. We were hardcore campers...roughing it, no electricity, no toilet, just nature. So, this was going to be like luxury camping to me!
It was me, Tony, Sherleen, and Alana. I still can't remember why we invited Alana exactly. It has been a while, so my memory may not be the best (calling on Tony to fill in the details!!). Alana wasn't exactly the easiest person to get along with. I mean, she was nice enough, but she could be like nails on a chalkboard sometimes. Her personality could easily clash with others. I think there must have been a reason though. Maybe she secured the campsite for us?? I had a lot of the camping equipment and I had my truck to load everything into, so that wasn't it. Alana had a car too, and she must have drove, because otherwise we wouldn't have left her there like we did (to be explained later).
I was excited for the trip and I packed Tony and Sherleen into my truck and we hit the road for the beach. When we got there, I think we set up camp, and then hit the beach. I don't really recall what the temps were, but it was the summer and the sun was definitely out in full force. To get to the beach we had to kind of climb down this sand hill. I remember thinking, this is much easier to get down then it's going to be get back up...but that didn't matter, I just wanted to hit the beach!
The concept of sunscreen was obviously foreign to me, because I don't think I used any, and if I did it was definitely not enough! We were on the beach for a while and I think I even fell asleep for a little bit (or maybe a long bit!). By the end of the day several of us (myself, Tony, and Sherleen) were all a little bit red. Plus, we had to crawl our way back up the sand bank to get back up to camp. This was a little bit easier for Tony and Sherleen I'm sure, but for me I was slightly challenged (being twice their size!). I remember crawling and then sliding back down and trying over and over again. I thought for sure I would die on that beach!
It wasn't long after we got back to camp before we realized we were pretty badly sunburned. It wasn't your average mild burn, we were in severe pain. Luckily, Sherleen had some lotion or aloe with her that we were passing around our camp circle trying to get any relief we possibly could. The burn was so bad that it hurt to breath, blink, turn, anything. We were miserable. We couldn't do anything! Alana was the only one that didn't get burnt. She was annoying the hell out of us because she wanted to do stuff and we were all too burnt to even think about doing anything!
The idea of spending the night in a tent and on the ground when our bodies were burnt to a crisp was a miserable thought. We contemplated just packing up and ending the trip early. I think we may have mentioned this in front of Alana, which caused an argument. Alana went psycho that night and threatened to take a bottle of pills and kill herself. When she found out we decided to leave she threatened to kill herself and then threw the pills into the fire after having a crazy fit. We were also there with someone else who was on Alana's side (I feel like her name was Tami). Alana then grabbed my lantern and threw it into the fire and blew it up!
It was not the fun camping trip we were looking forward to! We just wanted to die. It wasn't like we just had a little burn on our arm or leg, we were walking fire! Our faces, legs, arms, bodies....lobsters! All we could do was take comfort in each others misery. The only one that didn't understand that was ALANA!
We came up with a plan to pack up our stuff and sneak out of camp in the middle of the night and go home! We figured Alana could stay or go as she wished, but we couldn't take it anymore.
While Alana was asleep, we quickly packed up my truck and gathered up our stuff. We wanted to get the hell out of there and we didn't want to wake Alana and face another meltdown or suicide threat! Thank goodness the pills were in the fire!
We frantically pulled it all together and piled into the cab of my truck (which btw only sits 2 legally) and we bolted out of there. It was such a relief to know we were headed home where we could bath in aloe or lotion and find some temporary relief to our throbbing lobster bodies! Sure, we felt bad that we left her there in her psycho fragile state and abandoning our trip, but no one could understand our pain! Plus, we were all a little scared at that point. I think as we pulled away, we were all looking back in fear that she might be following us. The adrenaline was running high that night.
After the trip there was some ill feelings with Alana, but we could have expected that. There was some high school drama of me threatening her over the lantern and being compensated for it. I wrote her some nasty and threatening notes about the lantern and I think I threatened suing her or having my parents come after her?! It was all drama! She did finally compensate me for the lantern. After all she did blow it up in her fit of psycho rage!
I often wonder what Alana is doing today. I don't think I really talked to her much after the camping trip from hell. Thankfully, I did keep in contact with Tony and Sherleen and we share our traumatic memories of the camping trip from hell! I think just the mention of it makes any one of us shudder. One positive out of the nightmare, is that it taught me a lesson about sunscreen and I never want to inflict that kind of pain on myself again! The other valuable lesson, is never bring a slightly mentally unstable individual on a camping trip...it will surely end bad!
No comments:
Post a Comment