Donner Expedition - Chapter One

One of my funniest memories is the attempted camping trip I took after college with two of my friends. So, I thought that I would, in a series of posts, tell that funny story.

One day, Kerry, Joy and I made a very foolish decision. We decided that, right after Kerry and I graduated, we would go camping. We planned to include our friend Heidi who has tons of camping experience, but she was not able to come. I had never been camping, and Kerry and Joy had a little experience. But we decided that we could figure it out, and planned to drive up to northern Minnesota along Lake Superior and camp for 3 days. We chose that area because it is beautiful, it has lots of places to camp, and my grandparents live there (you know, in case we needed anything). We hoped the weather would be warm by mid-May, and we stocked up on what we would need. I had been given a tent for Christmas, and Kerry and Joy's mom loaned us things like a kettle and a lantern.

During the planning stages, we received a lot of advice and opposition from some friends. Jason did not think we would make it and said to me, "You three are going camping? Could you please videotape that? I'm pretty sure it will be the funniest thing I have ever seen." Matt didn't have a whole lot of faith in us either, but he kindly provided us with a list of pointers. He included things like, "Camp near a family" and "If you don't have a hammer, you can pound your tent pegs in with a rock." Andrew told me the whole thing reminded him of the ill-fated Donner party, so I named the whole thing "The Donner Expedition."

Well, graduation came and went, and we set off in that very packed car. We all had to ride in the front because it was full of sleeping bags, other camping stuff, and lots of Kerry and Joy's stuff from college. Oh, one more important thing is that Kerry had been given a nice camera for graduation that took short videos. So we promised our friends that we would document the whole thing and show them how well we did. Little did we know what the "documentary" would really show. . .