I was the only child in my family for 9 years so I didn't have any play mates up there. As a kid I loved running around with a butterfly net to catch frogs and toads. I'd collect them all in a bucket and before too long would let them all free. There's a pile of neatly stacked bricks that I would imagine was my castle and there's a tree I could hang out on for hours. I stayed up late with the adults and learned how to play poker at a young age. I never minded getting dirty and I can't remember a time when I wasn't okay with taking my own fish off the hook. Thanks to my time at the cabin I have never been afraid of spiders and (if it isn't huge) would kill one with my bare hand. My grandma would always let me sit on her lap once we got to the private dirt road that leads to our cabin and steer until we got there. Once I was tall enough to reach the pedals I got to switch spots with her and drive it myself. It was hard to hide the smile on my face while I was sitting in the driver seat. It was inevitable that by growing up at the cabin I would be shaped into the person I am.
Now, when I say it's small I mean that it's small! There's a room for a kitchen that can really only comfortably fit one person if they're busy cooking. The bathroom is a decent size (because it used to be a bunk bed room when we were allowed to have a working outhouse on the property) and then the rest of the cabin is one room. A twin bed, love seat, bunk bed and couch with a hideaway bed all sit along 2 walls with a dining room table in the middle. If everyone is seated at the table it's almost impossible to walk around it without someone needing to move to squeeze you through. There's been a trailer up there as long as I can remember for extra sleeping but back when I was a kid the cabin was perfect for fitting everyone. Now that my mom has three more kids, my aunt and uncle have three and we have two (plus my grandparents) it's impossible to fit us all in there at the same time. Someone always needs to pitch a tent and what if there's bad weather? Well, we have to keep an eye on the forecast before heading up there. Bad weather means we don't go.
Our little family (Andy, Levi, Rex and I) really enjoy going up there but we hate pitching a tent and I can never sleep good when I'm so easily accessible to the forest creatures and bad guys in the world. So, we had some money saved up and decided to buy ourselves a used pop up camper a couple days ago. We got the okay from my grandparents to park it somewhere at the cabin and we couldn't be more excited. Now we have our own little space up there and don't have to worry about where we will land when it comes time to sleep. Plus, we have odd weekends so it can be used by other people when we are not there. I plan to go up as much as possible this summer and can't wait!
