Bursting into Flames on the Harvey Trip

Harvey Trip = RV Trip ... Get it?

So we had hatched an idea to take our young grandsons on a road trip, like - let’s rent an Recreational Vehicle (RV) and spend a week on the road driving around Oregon and camping and such.  This required some planning and the procurement of a decent RV to get us around in some degree of comfort, sleeping five and allowing for some distance between stops primarily on the Oregon coast.

The first thing we discovered when we presented this idea to the young lads, was that they immediately dubbed the trip "Harvey" as in “we’re gonna go on a Harvey Trip!”  The which means they equated an RV with a character in a Disney movie who was actually a Recreational vehicle named "Harvey".   Get it? Harvey = RV?

Anyway we set off Monday afternoon, late as it were, because there were numerous loading issues and lost keys and bathroom emergencies and photos and on and on.  But we made it to our first stop later Monday evening (Beverly Beach) without too many mishaps, and settled in for the night … sort of.  

These guys were pumped up out of their minds and could not get to sleep and, whatd’ya know?  We‘re all sleeping in the same space only we're not sleeping.  Immediate panic begins to set in – we’re not going to sleep all week?  We’re gonna die!

Is it time for breakfast yet?

The next morning we began to explore early because they were the first ones up – in the entire campground.  6:00 AM and they are fighting and shouting and crying and screaming for breakfast.    

We go for a bike ride and disrupt the entire campground, which is rather large I must say. This place is huge and really quite well done. Modern campgrounds are better than they used to be”.

Once we have exhausted the first hour and a half of the first morning, we settle in for a second breakfast, with real food like bacon and eggs.  Fiona does a masterful job of whipping up a terrific meal, and of course they eat nothing.  They want to make s’mores. I’m thinking Hey man, it’s breakfast time!  Isn’t that supposed to be a night time campfire thing?

Only they won’t be deterred and – warning, danger ahead – Fiona has this idea to make s'mores in a cone like an ice cream and cook them in the fire with tin foil.  I think it was a Pinterest thing, or some other such bizarre nonsense.  

So we create these “cones of death” containing small marshmallows and  chocolate chips stuffed into a waffle cone and wrapped up in a bunch of tin foil and they are supposed to be inserted into the fire. 

I question this:  you mean like stick these into the flames to cook them?  And the answer comes back yes, of course, and we will let them melt like real s'mores and they will be yummy!  I’m beginning to think this is risky. It’s way too early in the morning for risk. 

So we set up three of them for the three boys and realize that the fire is pretty smoky and maybe we’ll have smoked s'mores?  Hey why not, what they heck?  We keep talking with the boys (they want to tell booger jokes) and sucking down coffee and trying to become coherent, and it seems like a short time and we pull out one of the s'mores and it is completely incinerated to a black mass of ashes.  Very unappealing !  Ha! 

So I immediately reach in to grab the others and I burn my fingers big time and I yell and throw the thing back in the fire and they boys starting laughing, and in the meantime I no longer have fingerprints on three fingers, and never will again.  It is not funny to me.  

One of the other s'more cones bursts into flames.  This is an epic fail.  All three of the s'mores are a charred mess, beyond hope and quite disgusting and the boys emit cries of despair and things like “sick!” “gross” “get that away from me!” and we have a pile of blackened s'mores and tin foil and this whole thing is an environmental disaster.    

However, life is not without challenges and you have to press on even against insurmountable odds.  We actually make the attempt to try this whole thing again and wrap these puppies up and stick in the fire one more time with a more diligent attitude. And guess what?  They sorta worked!  The idea is not a complete train wreck.  They were edible… I guess.

By this time, we are all kind of done-ski with this idea and hop on the bikes and head to the ocean and the beach.  

Not a bad first day.  Well, fairly bad but nobody got hurt except for me (the boys’ injuries came later) and nobody got sick (well, that came later too).   All in all … hey, we might want to get some more coffee.

But before noon, one of the little ones has a tremendous meltdown in the parking lot of Wal-mart (Hey, they have parking for Harveys!).  He begins to exhibit initial stages of bipolar disease and it hasn't even been 24 hours and we’re starting to lose it.

Y’know, this trip seemed like a good idea at the time.