“I don’t think so. She grabbed some crackers. We should be good. Is everyone else ready?” He looked around at the group of us standing in his driveway.
The pop ups had arrived this morning, and luckily we all had vehicles we could hitch them too.
“Who am I bunking with?” Derek bounced down the house steps with one last bag over his shoulder. No one spoke up. I walked over to him and smiled wide.
“I got you a tent.”
He swore and looked desperately around the group for help.
“Oh, come on, not cool. Why do I have to sleep in a tent?”
Adrian crossed his arms.
“You don’t have a car, you didn’t pay for a camper like the rest of us did. What was your plan?”
Derek’s face grew slightly pink.
“I don’t know. I thought there’d be room in one of yours.”
“Not in ours. We’re at full capacity,” Ethan said, shutting the back of his Escalade.
“Fine. I’ll pay for half of someone's camper,” he said, pouting.
I looked over at Mark who was giving me the look that said, ‘Don’t you dare’. I gave him my best apologetic smile, and he frowned.
“You can stay with us,” I sighed. He brightened and ran over to our vehicle.
“But I will not hesitate to make you sleep in that tent if you can’t behave!” I shouted after him.
Cleo was the last one to exit the house. She gave us all a thumbs up.
“Alright, we’re all ready to go. Tabatha’s gonna cat sit for Kitty and Big D. Let’s get a move on.” We piled into our cars and started the six-hour trip to the Anthony Chabot Campground.
When scouting for a place to visit, the thing we had all agreed on was that we preferred something not so local. I think we all wanted to just get away from Los Angeles for a bit. I spent an entire afternoon searching for campgrounds that let us have pop ups, dogs, and were kid friendly. Finally, I settled on this place. I was excited. I had never been here before.
Derek talked our ears off the entire ride. He seemed more excited than the twins were. I almost wished we had offered to take them instead. I made a note to see if they’d trade them for Derek on the way back.
Once they started talking video game stuff, I closed my eyes and put my pillow against the window to take a nap. By the time I woke up we were less than a half hour away.
The Andrews’ were at the head of our little parade, so Ethan got out and talked to the gate people. They waved their hands, directing him to our spots I assumed. He climbed back in the car and when we got up the guy told us to just follow Ethan. We were good to go.
I managed to rent three lots in the same area. The Andrews’ and the Wilson’s were side by side, and our camper was across the small dirt path not even thirty feet away.
Once we were parked, I quickly found that I was the only one with pop up experience. I had to help everyone get their campers set up. By the time we were unloaded and starting to settle in it was time for dinner. Thankfully I wasn’t the only one who knew how to start a fire.
Our lot had no neighbors on one side, so we brought all of the chairs and tables over to our side and had hot dogs and burgers in the cool shade. Once dinner had been consumed, we moved our chairs over to the fire pit to enjoy the warmth while the sun set.
Beau and Bonnie didn’t seem to like the change of scenery. I laid out a blanket for them near the camper and they hadn’t strayed much from it. Ozzy, Dallas’ dog, and Chester, Chase and Adrian’s dog on the other hand were going crazy with the extra space. They had spent most of the evening playing and chasing each other around. Now they had settled near their owners.
As soon as the sun was fully set Derek ran into the camper and returned with the ingredients to make s'mores. The twins and Cleo squealed and hurried to grab the sticks we had used for hot dogs earlier.
Derek filled the twins up with marshmallows until they were falling asleep on each other. When Ethan had to pull a half-eaten marshmallow out of Dallas’ mouth he called it a night for them and took them to bed. Soon after the rest of us were yawning and we put the fire out so we could get a good night’s sleep.
In the morning we found Derek was already gone. Setting things up for breakfast we discovered that no one knew where he had gone off to.
“He went to sleep when we did.” Mark told the group, but he was just as mystified as the rest of us.
I was beginning to get worried when noon rolled around and we still hadn’t heard from him. I was telling Mark that maybe we should go look for him when suddenly Derek appeared walking down the road towards our lot, holding a fishing pole.
