Lugnuts, Mosquito Bites and Peacefulness

The weekend after we got Jackson’s diagnosis Kevin and I headed to the mountains.  I feel most peaceful and happy when I am out in the middle of nowhere, in a forest, surrounded by mountains, and everywhere I look is awesome beauty.  So when we got the worst news of our lives we just stopped everything and went to the mountains.  That sense of peace and beauty helped us so much that we decided that would be our priority that summer/fall.  We didn’t care about all the housework or projects that needed to be finished, we went hiking every weekend with our son in search of the peace we so needed in our hearts.  Unfortunately, last summer those projects were looming and had to be completed so we weren’t able to get out in the mountains that much.  Now that we are home from our vacation and summer has arrived we have again spent our weekends working on house projects.  Until a couple of weeks ago that is.

Jackson and I were shopping at Target one day when I walked down the camping gear aisle by accident.  As we passed down the aisle Jackson became very animated and he started wiggling and laughing.  I stopped to try and figure out what he was doing and noticed he was looking at the tents.  That was when it hit me – the kid wants to go camping!  It was some kind of sign!  When we got home I told Kevin that Jackson wanted to go camping next weekend.  Kevin said “Let’s go!”  So last weekend after a great deal of packing (why do kids require so much stuff?) and precision loading of the car (there was not one inch of space left) we left early Saturday morning for Montana.  We are lucky to be only a couple of hours away from the beautiful state of Montana.  We got to Trout Creek campground by lunch time, set up the tent, unpacked all our gear, had some food and hit the road again to go hiking.  The trail to the hike, Heart Lake, was about 16 miles past our campsite on a dirt road.  The day was beautiful, warm with a light breeze, and blue skies.  Jackson was also beautiful.  Smiling, making happy sounds, and laughing all 3 miles to Heart Lake.  We spent a little time at the lake letting Jackson roll around and eating a snack and then we headed back to the car.  Again Jackson did amazing on the hike out, not a cry or unhappy sound.  Considering that he hadn’t had a nap all day and had been on the move pretty consistently we were pretty impressed.  It was about 6 p.m. when we got to our car and we were all ready for dinner and Jackson was ready for bed!  As we started driving back to camp I noticed the car was driving weird so I got out to check the tires.  Sure enough we had a flat tire.  I mildly started to freak out.  We got out the donut tire and lug nut wrench to change the tire.  This is when we discovered the lug nut wrench did not fit the lug nuts.  Which meant we were 16 miles away from camp, 23 miles from the nearest town, on a dirt road, at 6:30 p.m., with a hungry, tired baby, and no way to change our tire.  Oh and no cell phone service.  This was also around the time I began to freak out.  We were there for about 5 minutes when a woman (kind of a socially awkward woman) drove by in an old van.  I flagged her down and asked for help.  She actually sat there for about 2 minutes looking away from me and thought about it before saying she would see if she had any tools that would help.  She didn’t.  At this point Kevin suggested I take Jackson and ask her for a ride back to our campground.  I did not want to go with the woman!  But I had to for Jackson’s sake.  She agreed to take us to our campground, and after a very long, weird ride we got to our campground where I told the hosts (a retired couple from Spokane) what had happened and the man jumped in his truck with his tools and went to help Kevin.  Meanwhile I got Jackson back to our campground just in time for him to finally have an “I’m hungry and exhausted” breakdown.  I put him on my sleeping bag in the tent while I frantically made Mac n’ Cheese on the camp stove outside.  Unbeknownst to me, Jackson wasn’t alone in the tent.  When I went in to get him to feed him he had about 4 areas on his cute little face where mosquitoes had had their own dinner.  His forehead had one spot that looked like 3 big bites and it was already swollen (and it stayed swollen for a couple of days until I finally put some Cortizone cream on it).  I felt horrible.  My poor baby.  I am sure this is not what he was thinking when he saw the tents in Target!  I managed to get him fed and put to bed.  Needless to say he slept very soundly through the night.  Kevin made it back to camp in time for some dinner but left shortly after that to head to town to see if he could find us a new tire.  Which amazingly on a Saturday night around 8 p.m. in a small Montana town (Superior) he did manage to find us a new tire and have it mounted.  The guy even threw in a 4 prong lug wrench!  At the end of the day we had a new $200 tire, a mosquito bitten kid, stressed out Mommy, and a triumphant Daddy who took care of his family.  And as Jackson slept, Mommy and Daddy ate cookies and played a game of cribbage, which Mommy won.  Despite the unwanted adventure, it all worked out and we had a great weekend out in the fresh air!