#FirstCamping

It is actually 1:02 A.M. right now over at where I'm living. I'm supposed to sleep at 9:00 PM every night to wake up at 4:00 AM every morning, but I think everyone knows how those kind of resolutions work out ! Although, to be fair, I did go to bed around 9:30 PM and tried to sleep, but I kept twisting and turning in bed and started having crazy dreams which woke me up in like 2 hours. After that I thought of talking to someone and well, most people I could talk to late at night have slept (because unlike me, people are not crazy on a Monday night!). Also, in my defense, I feel sick, something in my throat bothering me ! Seems like I gotta take care of myself.

This is kinda my self reflection time, late at night time. Usually this happens on either a Friday or a Saturday. But now I'm part of a crazy group at work so my weekends have started being the craziest part of my week. Like one of the weekends we went camping. And while camping is a lot of fun, we were dangerously unprepared for what we were gonna do, which is going to become evident through the story.

We were supposed to be camping for one night and then doing some trails and stuff in the morning following it. That was the plan. As far as I knew before leaving was, we are going camping. Where, was unclear to me, when, was told to me the day before, what I needed to get, was left open for me to guess. And I packed a pair of clothes for the next day, that was pretty much it. I had a thin jacket which I keep at office usually, that I took with me. Now, remember, I don't know where we are going. I only know that it is a 5 hours drive from office, and we're supposed to leave at 3 PM on Friday (missing all of our meetings that afternoon, I'm telling you man, Friday has never been a good day for meetings). At 2:55 PM I am told that it is going to be 45˚ F at the campsite all night, so we need to take good jackets (huh, so me and all others who had no idea would be shivering all night, good to know!). We get late by at least 1 hour, remember, first time camping for pretty much everyone. There is only one girl who has done camping before and well, I have no idea if she is always drunk or what, but she had no experience whatsoever from her first time. Late by one hour, reached there by 9:00 - 9:30 PM, with no flashlights on us, very less fuel (which we also spilled some and burnt the twigs around us, poor twigs!), crazy amounts of uncooked food with very less experienced manpower on the BBQ and fireplace. Only good thing we did on our way up there was get pizza, and lots of it!

Now starts the fun! We borrow a big flashlight (remember, no flashlights, dangerously unprepared) from one of the groups around our camping site and try to set up tents and BBQ place. Once the BBQ stand is set up, we need to get starter fuel to light up the coal for BBQ and barbecue some Paneer for me and one other vegetarian person in the group, which I was glad to eat! It was marinated well, people on the BBQ did a good job. Some folks started lighting up the fireplace (men get fire #FRIENDS). Remember that point I made about us being unprepared ? Well, we set up the BBQ well, but we forgot to keep the coal in a dry location, it got wet and cold for the next round of BBQ. We got some wood for the fireplace on our way there, but none of us had experience getting good quality wood. We got wood that seemed to be wet, not while buying it, but while burning it! And, to top it all off, most people did not know it was gonna be 45˚ F out there, so we were shivering ! We did some stuff around the place, got the beers out, everyone was drinking something or the other and after a lot of failed attempts at both BBQ and fireplace (doesn't seem like there were men there), a round of buying flashlight, fuel and some other things from a Walmart nearby, sat down in a circle, starting to enjoy the cold (well, we were forced to) and sing and dance (dating ourselves back to the historic Indian tribes, who spent most of their evenings singing and dancing, without a fireplace). With time, we were sitting on top of a big SUV we had rented and were drinking like crazy with a lot of questions on personality detection (putting in some ML terms #MLforLife).

I slept that night around 2:30 AM. Everyone else was drinking then. I woke up at 6:00 AM shivering like crazy to find out some people had made themselves comfortable in the car with the heater on (-_-)! And they were sleeping like deep with crazy ways of sleeping. 7 people in the big SUV with perfect heater on, 2 people in the girl tent (we had a 6-girl tent and a 5-guy tent, I was the only person who used the guy tent, kind of), and 2 folks in the sedan we had! The two people in the sedan were very comfortable, as in, 1 of them was in driver seat snoring like crazy, other one was in the passenger seat with passenger seat window full open, his head sticking out of it and heater in the car at full capacity. I wonder what these folks had been through during the night ! Anyway, everyone is asleep, and I am up, how do I pass the time. Cleaned up a bit, then went exploring the area, there was a big lake, sat at the lake beach for some time, took some time to destress and de-shiver. Came back to find out everyone had woken up and were taking a bath! While they're doing that stuff, me and one of my friend (who was in the girl tent) are doing personality detection for me (she is still in reflection mode, I guess).

This followed with a round of pictures, and then a round of trying to figure out what to do next, and then doing something simple next and then missing out on kayaking because of doing something simple (kayaking closes at 4 PM, we got to the kayaking place at 4:05 PM #Phew #CloseCall #WaitWhat). Then we went to the lake beach (where I was in the morning) to jump into the lake and pull everyone who came there with you ! And it is time for dinner and leaving for home ! Now this is where another fun story starts !

We go to a Mexican place to eat, Ricardo Cocina, I even remember the name of the place. The waitress there was crazy hot ! And to top it off, she had the best country accent I had ever heard. Remember when I used to say that I fall in love every 8.24 seconds ? Well, I got proof for ya ! And, everyone in the group got to know about it ! Sitting in that restaurant in a group of 13 I was so excited ! I was trying to talk to this waitress chick, and trying for all the people at my table to take their questions to her through me. I would show getting upset when they directly called onto her to ask her for something. Somehow, she started asking questions to all of us on the table and from the side where I was sitting at and I started getting into a good conversation with her. I told her I loved her accent and that she was being really sweet in managing the lot since every one of us had different requirements and all. After the conversation the major dilemma was, how to get her number ! I wanted to get it, my heart was pumping and I was thinking of good ways of asking her. Not just that, everyone in the group was trying to motivate me to ask for her number. So, I put a generous tip for her and when everyone was leaving, went up to her. As people saw me going up to her, they started rushing out to the car and wait for the results. I have no idea what they were doing. Maybe betting on me. He would get the number, I bet $10. I counter-bet $100, he wouldn't ! Something like that, I don't know. Inside the restaurant, I'm the only one who is not the restaurant staff, trying to continue the broken conversation with this girl. And, I did ask for her number !

Me: "Hey, I really admire you showing me pictures of your hunting adventures. And, I would love to learn hunting. I don't know anyone who could teach me, would you mind being my coach ?"

Her: "Sure, the next hunting season is in October..."

Me: (interrupting her) "Would you mind sharing your number with me ?"

Her: "Sure." (pause) "I do have a boyfriend, though."

Me: (Trying to comeback with something good and making hand gestures)

Her: (interrupting me) "Just for hunting ?!"

Me: "Yeah" [to myself: "I know what I would be hunting.... ha ha ha #slowClap"]

(I take her number, make her type her name instead of me doing it, so I have the correct spelling. Walk back to the car !)

Get to the cars, #Don emerges and tells everyone how he just got the number of a really hot chick !