The Harris's Go Home

This is part three of the three part saga of the Harris's Green Leaf adventure.

So it's Sunday morning and the end of a glorious stay at beautiful green leaf state park. How can all of this be brought to a successful close?

Well, it starts with the prying of reluctant teenagers from their slumber followed closely by a breakfast of something that just has to be unwrapped and ingested. After breakfast, we begin something that resembles a cross between the Bataan death march and a Chinese fire drill. First, all of the stuff that we brought with us is systematically removed from our cabin. Imagine if you will the packing up of P.T. Barnum's greatest show on earth, complete with the flying trapeze, sans the elephants, and you'll get pretty close. Usually there is some yelling at teenagers (our national pass-time) and someone can't find an iPhone or a wallet. After the chaos subsides, all of the stuff, for the most part, is loaded back into the 5 vehicles that were used as original transportation, but shall we say with less precision than before (for instances, the tooth brushes may be in the same container as the stink bait, and the container of left-over tub-o-stuff may be intermingled in amongst the clean laundry and spare batteries). And by the way, no list is needed as we basically just strip the cabin bare and then try to put back the stuff that belongs to the state (I think that's why we have no less than 7 medium sized stainless bowls at home).

Once all of the packing is complete, the kids and dogs are loaded up like in the movie the Grapes of Wrath, and we head to the park office to drop off our first-born male child as payment for our cabin. With any luck, he will be able to work off the bill before Christmas, but if not, we're usually back by Valentine's day for another stay and can pick him up then.

After settling up, we spend the next hour or so hanging around the camp ground with the other stragglers for one last chance to say goodbye and to do our best to help the others with their packing (we offer to drink their leftover beer and pop so they don't have to haul it). We make one last comment as to how much the color of the tree has changed in just 10 days, talk about how good the weather was, and relish in the fact that some lucky soul will get the rest of our fire wood. Once the last lawn chair has been pried from beneath our butts, folded up and loaded, we are ready to depart for home.

So, until next year, we bid lake Green Leaf fare well and start the new countdown... 355 days 'til Green Leaf!