Camping with my "grown "kids.  I was sitting around one day doing "nothing", when it dawned on me that this is the last full year my kids will be home.  My daughter will be moving out soon for school, and my son is 17.  I decided to spend this last year bonding with them..   We are going to camp out on top of Mount Derby so we can watch the sunset and sunrise on the Beartooths.   I packed up our camping gear.  This went well with the kids.  They were terrified of freezing to death, the bears would eat them, and they will die of boredom.  In response, I packed extra sleeping bags, extra food, and a portable DVD players.  We were going.
         We get up there, set up the tent, and build a fire ring.   My daughter and I going hiking.  My son sits on a cliff and plays his guitar singing at the top of his lungs.  Well, that took care of the bears.  It was going so nice.  There wasn't a lot of talking, just a kind of quiet communion with nature.  We were all relaxed and happy.
          I cooked a great dinner of red beans with tomatoes and biscuits.  We sat around the fire and watched the sun set over the mountains.  It was beautiful.  Took pictures with our cell phones.  By the way, you get full bars up there.  We climbed into our tent and watched a movie.  
           Let me explain our tent.   It is 16 by 8 by 6 feet.  My son has a twin sized air mattress.  My daughter and I share a queen air mattress.  It is the Rockies and I am not sleeping on rocks.  My son is a personal advocate for Big Foot.  He starts talking about how this is a perfect place for Big Foot.  My daughter is not amused.  She yells at him to shut up.  He thinks its funny to see her scared. Then he starts talking about movies, like Wrong Turn and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Mike is laughing and Renee is yelling.  I tell them both to shut up.  The wind blows causing the tent to shake a little.  Mike is dragging his mattress over by mine.  He says he doesn't want to get cold.  Every time the wind blows, they are both convinced it's either a bear or a cannibal.
            I wake up at 5 am sore.  Somehow during the night, my son has wormed his way onto my air mattress.  I have two kids embedded into both of my sides.  Mike complained that his mattress went flat.  It didn't.  So here we are in this large tent, crammed in one end taking up about 4 feet.  I have to pee now.  No one wants to move.  I tell them one of two things are going to happen.  Either they move or I pee right where I am at.  They move.
            Here is the irony of the whole experience.   For the last two years, my kids have made fun of me for being old. blind. weak, and senile.  I must be more helpless than a 2 minute old kitten.  So why did they think I was going to be able to protect them from bears and cannibals?