Father and Son campout

The one consolation to having mostly sons is the Father and Son Campout. One night a year, dad takes the five boys camping while mom and Regan do girl stuff. While we were in Washington they had a family campout instead of a father and sons. While we did enjoy the family campout, Regan and I missed out on our girl time. So imagine our elation as Dix packed up the boys and headed out at 9 am on a Friday morning.

Hayden couldn't go because he had to work on Saturday morning.

But other than that, we had a perfect weekend planned. Skipped school, plenty of chocolate, a craft night at the church, girlie movies. It was perfectly planned. And it was going beautifully.

Until Porter called me at about 11 am. He was lost. They got to camp, and Porter wandered off to go exploring. By himself. Dixon's phone was dead or out of range, or more likely, both. But Porter had his phone.

So much for my quiet day.

We kept talking and texting pretty much for the four hours that he was lost. Yes. Four hours. And Dix didn't even notice that he was gone. So here are some of the things that he texted me: (I'm not fixing the grammar or spelling. This is just what I read. )

After me asking if he was okay:

1:48--Yes im just stressed out

2:33--I'm going to eat some pine needles. (His survivor mode took over and made the stressed out mode go away.)

2:35--Can you look up to see if a century plant is edible?

After I answered yes, he asked, "Ol dead ones too?"

I then proceeded to help him find the camp by him describing the landmarks and Hayden and I (because he was home from school at this point) trying to direct him to the camp using google earth. Keep in mind that we didn't know exactly where the camp was. (Blind leading the blind?)

I told him to head north on the road.

2:51--It's only going east and west. (I could tell he wasn't stressed anymore. He used an apostrophe.)

2:58--K i was just going east. Is there any water?

Did I mention that all he had on him was his phone and a knife? No water. We live in Arizona. Not good. After three hours, he was getting desperate for a drink.

3:02--Can i eat prickly pear "leaves"?

I of course googled it, and told him that yes, yes he could. Hayden proceeded to run out to the desert to try some at the same time so that he could experience it, too. Silly boy.

3:36--I turned around and now the cliff canyon ravine riverbed tjing is to my right and im jeading towards the sun

Dix finally got the frantic messages that I left him. He called Porter.

3:44--He called me

Dix drove around the camp honking the horn until Porter popped up out of ravine. Good times. But so much for a peaceful weekend!

Later that day--"I was only half a mile away from camp when hayden told me to turn around:(

Just for the record, Porter filtered some nasty water from a lake/pond/big puddle with his shirt so he could drink it. And he found a tin can and cut it in half in preparation to use it to catch/drink his urine. Seriously. This kid is a survivor.