I hate yellow jackets, hornets, wasps, mosquitoes – any insect of the stabbing your skin variety, but today especially yellow jackets are at the top of my list.

The day started out in amazing fashion. We woke up, packed away the tent, ate some pancakes for breakfast, then headed out to get us some tubes. No problem there were there are at least 5 different places you could get them from on the road leading into Deep Creek Park. We opted for JJs Tubes as they had both child and adult sized tubes.

Loading them up on top of the Defender proved to be interesting. I’m just glad we didn’t have to navigate under any bridges because we were definitely pushing 11-12’ in height. We made it back to the park and nabbed a parking spot in the same area as the day before.

Now came the fun part of hiking with four kids and four giant tubes a mile up the river where we could get in to float back down the same mile before doing it all over again. Little One made it easier by happily walking for a good portion of the hike before asking to be carried. The older three skipped along without any fuss at all.

We entered the river at Tom Branch Falls, the same waterfall we had hiked to the day prior. This is where things got a bit tricky. The water was about waist deep and I was trying to jump backwards into the tube while holding Little One. Needless to say we both got drenched in icy river water (okay, maybe it wasn’t quite icy, but it was definitely still cold enough to be a huge shock to the system) and Little One was not happy.

The current wasn’t too strong here, but I still worried if I gave her to one of the other children to hold they’d drift off with her before I could get in my tube and switch her back to me. Mr. Stubborn had secured our tubes together with a cord so I opted to hand Little One to him figuring it would be easy to switch her back to me.

It was and we were finally off floating down the river. It was relaxing and enjoyable and peaceful until we hit the rocks. Not in an ‘Ow’ sort of way, but in a ‘Get out of the tube because the river is too shallow and we have to walk’ sort of way. Which again is not easy when one is carrying a toddler. We had to do this a few times, but eventually we made it back to our picnic spot by the river where we crawled up the bank and the kids begged to do it all over again.

It wasn’t something I was keen to do all over again, but nor could I in good conscience send the kids to do it on their own either. Because even though the water was so shallow in some spots you had to walk, there were a few spots it was so deep Mr. Stubborn could barely touch. So off we went to hike another mile up the road with four tubes in tow.

This time Little One was done with walking and I had to carry her and the tube the whole way. Not only was she done with walking, but she fell asleep almost as soon as we were in the tubes floating down the river again. That certainly made walking over the shallow parts a lot more difficult, but it gave me an excuse to not have to hike the mile back up for a third run.

By now, it was close to lunch time, so we took a break from tubing to cook up some lunch and play in the river some more. During this time, I got to chatting with our neighbors one picnic table over from us and found out the river wasn’t usually so low, but due to lack of rain the level had dropped quite significantly. The week prior it was so low, tubes had been popping as people tried to float down. It was all well and good though as the level was up enough we could somewhat enjoy our afternoon of hiking and then floating back down.

But then disaster hit. It was after dinner and Little One and I were off to the bathroom to brush teeth and such since we’d decided to once again boondock at Deep Creek. A yellow jacket stupidly flew inside my sandal and proceeded to sting the arch of my foot repeatedly. I unceremoniously dropped Little One to the ground as I struggled to unstrap my sandal to get the little bugger out. She started screaming and I was about to do the same as the pain from multiple stings started to make my foot throb.

After what seemed like hours but in reality was probably only seconds, I finally got the sandal off and the offending insect fell to the ground near death before I beat it with the same sandal ensuring its total demise. Little One was still on the ground crying completely oblivious to my pain, but stewing in her own pain from being dropped so suddenly.
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I picked her up and hobbled my way to the bathroom the pain intensifying with each step. The last time I’d been stung I was just a kid and I don’t remember it hurting this much or maybe it just hadn’t been in such an inconvenient spot. By the time I got back to our picnic site, I was pretty much in tears. My foot had swelled to the point my arch was nonexistent and the pain was unbearable. 

​Thankfully Miss Drama jumped into help mode. She got me some ice cubes to help with the pain and swelling while also mixing up some baking soda and water for a poultice. She grabbed the first aid kit and helped me wrap up my foot with the paste mix in place while counting the number of stings – she counted seven. Ugh. No wonder it hurt so much.

By now it was just about time for Little One to get to bed, but I was basically out of commission because I could barely stand let alone walk over to the truck to get the tent up. So, Miss Drama and #2 went to unfold the tent while I tried to get Little One ready for bed when lo and behold Mr. Park Ranger shows up. He explains parking in the park overnight is okay, but camping is not, so we need to fold back up the tent and go across the river to the campground. At this point my foot is wrapped up and shoeless, I’m using the stroller like a crutch to walk, and all I can think is there is no way putting away the tent is possible let alone driving my manual transmission truck when my left foot is so swollen it looks like the arch fell. I’m so close to tears, the only word I could get out was “Okay” as I hobbled back to the picnic table to pack up.
He left and I realized there’s no way we’re leaving this park tonight. I considered driving over to the campground across the river, but when I checked their website they don’t accept rooftop tents. Nope, definitely not leaving. I had the kids help me start packing everything up and loading it in the truck to give the impression we were going to leave just in case he came back, but the reality was we were there for the night whether we were supposed to be or not.

Hopefully, Mr. Park Ranger is off for the rest of the evening since it is now well past 8pm and hopefully my foot will be well enough in the morning for us to get up early and head out of there. And hopefully I’ll be able to sleep despite the constant throbbing taking over my foot. There’s a lot of hoping going on tonight as we all tuck in and crash for the night.