When you are out camping, it will likely rain on occasion. You can give up and go home, or just go with it.
First, a note: We are now at Durant lake and have a nice site overlooking the water. The site itself looks like a croquet court - we could play bocce ball on it! It is level grass with a pressure-treated border, and a new gravel driveway. We parked the camper right up at the edge of the border, and you step out onto virgin lawn. That is the nature of camping, though - some days are great, others, less so.
So far it is pretty quiet, but I was woken up to the sound of NPR's "Morning Edition" being cranked through the hatchback of a neighbor's Prius. Two old hippies - must be deaf. And they are 50 yards away, too. Funny thing, though, even though you can't make out the words, you can tell it is morning edition. It is like when someone is playing Rush Limbaugh, you can tell who it is, even if you can't make out the words- "wah, wah, wah, Hillary Clinton, wah, wah, wah". Similarly, you can tell a Fox News broadcast just from the panic in the announcer's voices - no need to make out the actual story.
It is drizzling out this morning, and when that happens, I usually build an enormous fire and make a huge pot of hot coffee. Particularly when you are camping with friends in tents, you have to do this. They wake up in the morning, cold and damp, and it is grey and drizzling out. Everything they own is wet. At that point, a lot of people give up, throw all their wet stuff in their car and go home. But of course, two hours later, the sun is out and it is a nice day for a hike. So to counteract this, I get a big fire going and make "toast hole" - frying slices of bread in butter and then cutting a hole in the middle with a discarded shot glass from the night before and frying an egg in the hole.
Warming and drying by the fire, a hot cup of coffee and a toast hole, and it can change your mood. It is sort of like drying off a wet cat.
What does this have to do with anything? Beats me, other than it illustrates how your attitude can change your outlook on life, and your attitude is affected by your environment. The shivering hippies in the tent, listening to gloom-and-doom on NPR this morning are no doubt not very cheerful on this grey, cold morning. The fellow listening to Fox News (or worse yet, watching it) is probably ready to commit seppeku.
