Doing the Caveman Shuffle

Ohhhhh, the experiences we adults live through trying to give new exciting experiences to our children.  Several months ago it was announced our Cub Scout group was organizing.......a campout.........in January..........in a cave........in Wisconsin.  Sounds really cool. Literally.  So, we definitely had it marked on the calender as a must do event.  And very cool it was. Not as cool as you would initially think.  First of all, the cave maintains a year round temperature of 62 degrees (sometimes colder in my own house depending on whether the furnace wants to works that night) so the January thing wasn't a big deal except getting down to the cave and getting back up to sea level.  There was a mighty treacherous hill to go down to get in and that same hill was there to go up when coming out.  Once you were in the cave it was about a 15 minutes walk through tiny walkways to get to where our group was camping, all underground.  During that walk, there is two way traffic in a lane that doesn't really even fit one grown adult, much less two adults......carrying camping gear.  Since we were in an enclosed area where the weather doesn't really change (always cool and wet) no tent was necessary.  Just a couple of cots, sleeping bags, and tarps to put under you and for some, over you, to protect you from the water drippage from the ceiling.   Once at your camp area, the trick then became to find an open spot big enough to lay out your cots, amongst over 200 other campers.  Let me just say, you get to know the sleep habits of perfect strangers quite well.  You pray that you don't setup next to a heavy snorer or a child that has night terrors.  And, of course, you try to setup where you can have easy access to the walkway out in case nature calls in the middle of the night, which means about a 1/4 mile hike (remember the hill I told you about). For some of us, it was a normal night of decent sleep. For others, not so much.  I kind of fit the second group.  But, it wasn't awful.  When people asked me if I would do it again, I replied, "Yeah, if my survival depended on it. Otherwise, probably not."  What really mattered is that the kids all seemed to like it.  And it's one of those memories, my son and I will always have.