Gulf Wars, the Arriving (Sunday, March 13th)

So, we managed to get the van mostly packed up Saturday night, which allowed us to get up early on Sunday and hit the road. And by 'early' I mean 'too damn bloody early for Corbin to reasonably function as a human being'. I'm talking like 4am, if you aren't taking into account the 'Spring Forward' time change that occurred that night. Fortunately, my lovely wife is better at mornings than I am and was the one driving. We threw a few last sundry bits in the vehicle and headed across town to pick up Melisande. The young lady collected, it was time to procure sustenance at that fine merchant of morning meatitude, Hardee's. One loaded omelet biscuit (and a side of hash browns) later and I was feeling almost human again. The road stretched before us, mysterious, inviting and free. We drove in shifts through the lengthening day, napping, chatting, stopping occasionally to pick up a few last items that sprang to mind as we went. It was well into afternoon by the time we reached our destination. Others of our party had arrived at nearly the same time, which was a fortuitous happenstance. After a surprisingly short wait to troll in to site, we all made our way to the Meridian encampment and began setting up what would be our homes for the next week. Here is where we ran into some problems. The space we had to set our tent up in simply refused to accomodate it. No matter how we turned it, the guide ropes would end up in someone else's tent. Finally, the nice couple who had set up previous to us volunteered to move their tent over to better fit the boundries laid our for our group. This done, we finally had enough space and the tent went up nicely. It was dark by the time everything was unloaded, but that was a minor issue. Being exhausted from the day's adventures, we ate a quick supper and retired for the evening. Our first night sleeping in a tent in over two years. We fell asleep remarkably easily. Little did we know what awaited us the following day.