The other day I took the wife and kids out to go see a movie—it cost an arm and a leg! I bought four tickets, a jumbo tub of popcorn, gummy bears, and 2 sodas. It cost nearly $60! And for what? Two hours of bad acting and a few steps closer to a cavity. Now I don’t want to sound like a cheapskate, but I think we didn't get much bang for our buck. On top of that, I work all week and would just like to spend some quality time with my family; we barely talked. I think we spent more time waiting in line and dealing with crowds than actually having fun. Personally, I would have preferred hanging around a campfire. Growing up in rural Montana, I have learned to appreciate the outdoors and the serenity of nature. We currently live in Philli, but we have started taking weekend camping trips to various camp grounds in western Pennsylvania and have had a lot of great times—until we tried sleeping in the bed of my pick up.

It was dusk. The sounds of insects in the summertime filled the cool night’s air. It was perfect—until the clouds rolled in. A group of rain clouds quickly passed over us, drenching the grounds, but didn’t scare us away. We took shelter in my truck until the rain passed. Unfortunately, we were left standing in mud. We had driven a few hours, so going home was out of the question and pitching a tent on the ground would have meant sleeping in a puddle, so we decided to sleep in the truck bed. I had an old ratty bed liner in there, which provided our backs with minimal comfort—but at least it kept us dry. I think I would have preferred the mud because when we woke up it looked as if we had the chickenpox. Apparently the liner was infested with some sort of bed bug. What a nightmare!