Campfire Story

Shelby Payne

2015 February 10th

English I

4th Block

The Payne’s Fun Family Vacation

One week after the Tazewell County Fair, my family, friends and I drive down to Effingham, IL to go to Lake Sara. Everyone that came down stayed there for two weeks in August right before the kids had to go back to school. Every night bonfire. The parents Rod, Rhonda, Ed, Marilyn, Mike, and Jackie roundup all the kids and tell them to go get wood so JR, JT, Shelby, Kayla, Bridget, Travis, Eddie, and Peter all figured out the best place to find wood. All the kids grab a big bundle, carry the wood back and told the parents. Everyone gets ready for dinner by taking a shower. After everyone was done, we all sat at the table and ate. We waited until 7:00pm to make the fire after everyone sets out different kinds of food. At 10:30 or so, some people had smores with RITZ crackers with caramel and chocolate or use Reese’s peanut butter cup or little candies. There were some hot dogs and brats to roast if some people were still hungry.

In the daylight around 7:00pm, the children shotguns at targets and went to the park or beach. Everyone sits around the campfire to eat and the littler kids asked the bigger kids to play hide and go seek in the dark. Later all the children played flashlight tag. After everyone settled down, all the older kids sat and talked while the parents and little kids went to bed. The older kids JT, JR, Shelby, Kayla, Travis, and Eddie stayed up. Hearing laughing around the campfire, I got all warm and fuzzy inside and a little warm on the outside. I moved away from the fire. After a while i got cold so I grabbed my camouflage tie blanket with bright orange on the inside. I sat back down and got all comfy. My brother, his friends, Kayla and Eddie wanted sweet tea so I maneuvered my way up and grabbed sweet tea, then came back and passed them out. Meanwhile I was cold and need to snuggle back up in my blanket.

As I sat down, I gazed into the beautiful blazing fire with a beautiful rust color on the wood and building up is a daffodil, Ferrari red, and tangerine. I imagined if everyone fell asleep around the fire and people cuddled because it was cold. The girls had blankets and the boys didn’t, so the girls gave them the blankets. Then Kayla and I were freezing so the boys said to hare because nobody wanted to get up because it was getting colder.

As I stopped looking at the fire, I heard music, playing and we all sat there and listened to music as we sang. After listening to music, JR, JT, Shelby, Kayla, Eddie and Travis played a mix of flashlight tag and hide and hide and go seek. All of us came back and ate chocolatey graham clusters with almonds and toffee bits, drank sweet tea and listened to the crackles and pops that came from the fire. Before everyone knew it  we were all looking at the stars and the cracks in our eyelids. Before we fell asleep, the boys were complaining that it was cold, so both of us gave them the blankets we had. Then we complained that it was cold, so they said come here to share the blankets. From now on, I will forever love campfires.

THE END