Missouri Trip Part 2

So, we arrived safely at Gerald & Karen's. Kim & I got a little rest, and it was time to check our our plush accommodations. What Gerald & Karen do is they have ~30 acres of land, with their house on the northern edge by the road. Well they have a spot about half way across the property to the south where they have a permanent car port pavilion, a couple of sheds, and an old camper trailer. They use this area for the camp site. It is equally distant to the small pond on the far south side of the property and to the main house. All of the family members set up their camper trailers and/or tents around the pavilion. There is plenty of room for everyone, and still lots of space for the kids to run around like crazy people and people to play lawn games.

So the rest of Kim's immediate family showed up Friday afternoon, and Gerald's oldest, Elizabeth. We had an excellent Mexican meal prepared by Phyllis & Alan (with James helping out on the fire). I went to bed early but a number of people stayed up late drinking around the camp fire.

[Let me interject a point about family drinking, Kim & I don't drink, I stopped before I met Kim and Kim never started (aside from a few episodes). But other members of the family do drink, and it rarely causes a problem at family functions (occasionally people get real stupid, but this is rare). We are not teetotalers, sitting around telling everyone that they shouldn't drink, it is just something everyone accepts about us and we accept about them.]

So that night and the next morning it rained pretty hard, thank goodness we were in the trailer. But this was Missouri, so it was never really cold, just chilly, I could get away with wearing my crocs the whole time. Really the only ones who suffered were the people in tents who did not set up their tents well, camping under trees, on a slope. I may no longer be Mr. Camper, but I did learn that much from all the camping I did as a kid.

Saturday the rest of the crowd showed up, Gerald's 2 boys Lance & Jesse, with their families. It was a relaxed day with nothing too huge to do. We mostly sat around visiting, and playing various lawn games. Had lots of fun learning a new game, Ladder ball. Saturday night we had grilled chicken and beans & potatoes. More excellent food, again I went to bed somewhat early with Emily & Daniel, while Kim stayed up and took James frog hunting at night. Which I gathered was a success and lots of fun. The next morning was the Memorial service, which I will get to later.