This is going to be a disaster (For guardj and DragonGypsy

[DragonGypsy]

"One. Ten. Two-twenty," Tracy went about muttering to herself as she went about doing what she could to be helpful. Honestly it was nice to be distracted by something other than the feeling in her stomach that was still attempting to settle down. She managed to find the correct plug-ins, though they looked kind of iffy, dark smudged of what looked like smoke burns all along the box. "Well, they're here," She said skeptically, "I have my doubts if they're actually going to work." Her forehead creased with worry, thinking about how awful she was going to look if she couldn't blow-dry her hair in the morning.

"I took us to civilization!" Mel yelled back at Andy with a grin, "Be grateful it isn't the middle of a bog, where, no doubt, you would have gotten us." Their little banter might have continued, had she not spotted Charlie jogging past in her peripheral vision. She didn't increase her pace much, thinking about her options as she watched the space between them grow wider.
She could either go all out into a competitive race, or . . . . .
With a huge grin Mel took off, streaking after Charlie with a gleam in her eyes. But instead of passing him she gave a giant leap and ended up wrapping her arms around his neck in a piggy-back position.
"My this is nicer than racing," She giggled, "Maybe I should have you carry me everywhere!"

Back at the RV they were getting a little bit of attention from some of the other residents, a stocky looking guy in worn jeans and a baseball cap crammed on his head shuffling up to lean on the power box, a fluffy white dog trotting around his feet and sniffing at the new people.
"Afternoon fella's, miss," He nodded in greeting, scratching his neck as he watched their setup. "Need any help?" They looked like an interesting group of youngsters, not exactly the type he'd expect to show up around here, but then, it was summer, and the youngsters did have a fascination with going on adventures. "New to these parts?"

[guardj]

(( Hey. Sorry for the long period of inactivity. I actually d didn't intend to drop the drop or leave you hanging. Its been a pretty unusual week. Sorry I couldn't give you any better notification. Caught by surprise. If you can continue to have patience I will be back on h the internet shortly. This phone is all I have for another couple of days. Sorry. ))

[DragonGypsy]

((No problem, thanks for letting me know)

[guardj]

Matt dug around in the storage compartment to figure out how to release the cables from their retention points so he could plug the RV in. He heard Tracy's comment about the outlets not looking like they'd work, and grimaced. He turned to look at her, and what she was indicating, and nodded his head a little. They did look a little burned out actually.

Meanwhile Charlie almost tripped on a root just as Mel landed on his shoulders. He stumbled a few steps before recovering, and wrapped his arms around her legs, and held her up a little. "Yeah, I guess you'd probably like that huh? Especially if we do end up hiking out to another site somewhere and putting up tents. But if I'm carrying you everywhere, who's gonna carry all that stuff you just insisted you had to bring, huh?"

He carried her through the door of the office, which swung open with ease, and clacked against the far wall as if it was barely on the hinges at all. A short, moderately overweight woman, with greying hair looked up in mild frustration at the noise, from some weathered magazine she was reading. "Careful now, that isnt gonna - oh - Visitors eh. Well welcome to our humble little RV park. You kids don't look like the kind of crowd we usually get around here. Though that's not necessarily a bad thing. Given some of the kind we get around here, you shouls probably be glad. So you kids here for the weekend?"

"Yeah." Charlie said, shifting Mel so she was higher up on on his back, and could see the lady and the room better for the sake of being able to communicate. "We're here for the weekend. We're in lot number....oh... uh... crap. Babe? You remember what the lot number was on the site we parked the RV? I know there was a three in it..."

Andy meanwhile, had gone back inside, and Matt was still checking, and double-checking why, even though they'd plugged the power up, It wasn't actually running any electricity. He looked up at the guy holding onto the dog. "Well, we might be new to these parts. That kind of depends on where precisely these parts are. We got a little lost on the way here see... and we're not sure exactly where we are, we just knew we'd found somewhere to stay, and we should stop before we got in a really bad way. As far as help... uh... we can't get the power on?"

"Oh, they switch that on from the office. Got a master breaker board in there."

[DragonGypsy]

"Stuff?" Mel asked innocently, unable to hold back the giggles as he carried her into the office, ducking her head so as to not get it smashed into the beams. "Why, I'd sweet talk Andy into carrying that. Or you would find some way to make it all work, even if you had to make two trips, wouldn't you sweetness." Her teasing tapered off at the disgruntled woman spoke to them, her giggles suppressing into mild hiccups as she smiled cheerily at the woman.
"Um. . . . thirteen? I think that's what it was, because I remember thinking how many people would avoid that spot because of all the superstition that goes with that number."
She was quite comfortable where she was, so as Charlie and the woman conversed a bit more she glanced around, looking for anything of interest in the small office. Other than a magazine rack, a rack of old looking postcards, and a grungy fridge that held beverages she was afraid to ask about, it only held the desk, a couple chairs, and a lamp.

"Thirteen hmm?" The woman merely shook her head, stuffing the magazine into a drawer as she eased from the chair, shuffled over to a whiteboard on the wall and jotted down the word 'Occupied' in the thirteenth square that had been drawn on with a black marker.
"Ten dollars a night, includes electricity," She sighed, easing back into the chair and watching them keenly. "Any tomfoolery and you'll be charged extra or asked to leave. There be critters around, so don't raise a ruckus just because a couple racoons decided to pay you a visit. I'll throw the switch for your electricity, it goes off every four hours for about two and half before coming back on again. Unless it's after midnight, then it'll stay off until it comes back on." With a wave of her hand that seemed to be a dismissal, the woman went back to her magazine, shuffling the pages until she found her article.

After watching the boy for a few minutes, and telling him about the electricity, the man seemed to grow bored and shuffled off, not even finding it important enough to tell the lad just which camp site they had stumbled onto. From the looks of it people were either settling in for the evening with whatever entertainment they had, or had not yet returned from the daily activities they had gone on.

Inside the RV Ana was finally finished tucking away her belongings in an overhead compartment. Something was stopping her from being able to fold the table out, however, and she had had to get down and crawl under the half raised table in an effort to find out what the hold up was.
"Gross," Her muffled voice floated from the darkness as she discovered the old, moth eaten tennis shoe. At first she didn't mind touching it, grimy and dusty as it was. But when she felt something small, warm, and wriggling, she dropped it and scooted back a few inches, banging her head on the table. She heard the creak of the door, and though she didn't crawl all the way out she twisted around slightly.
"If someone lost a shoe . . . and a pet or two recently, I found it." Of course, whoever lost it probably wasn't even around anymore, probably a previous owner of the RV. And goodness knows even if they were around they wouldn't want it now, not with a nest of pink, wriggling mice in it.

[guardj]

Charlie laughed. "Well, I guess Andy has to be good for something then, huh?" When they encountered the rather gruff seeming lady, he'd had to rely on Mel to remember their lot number, and even though she'd mentioned superstitious people avoiding the thirteen lot, the lady didn't seem too concerned. She just checked their number off the board, and wrote their position down on some kind of chart. She did tell them they'd have to watch out for some problems with the electricity. He just knew the girls were gonna love that. Especially Tracy. She seemed kind of the opposite of a 'roughing it' kind of girl.

"So, ten dollars a night, then? Is that in advance?"

The woman did not look back up from her magazine, where she seemed to be flipping around through pages to find wherever her article was continued from their interruption a minute ago. She idly shrugged her shoulders towards the couple as if to say she really didn't care. But he got the feeling that if he didn't pay in advnace, she probably wasn't going to cut their power on. Just seemed like that kind of place.

"Hey, Mel, I need to get to my wallet, so don't fall." He warned, but not that far in advance of dipping to the side, causing her to shift away from his pocket where he grabbed his wallent and pulled out a couple five dollar bills, setting them on the counter in front of the woman. She didn't seem to respond, but he figured it was better safe than sorry.

"So, what's in the fridge there?" He asked, nodding his head in the direction of that side of the room. "Is that for just you guys, or do you sell stuff to customers?"

Matt meanwhile was looking a little relieved at finding out that their power connections were off at a breaker somewhere and not just messed up. This was a little backwoodsy, even for a campground, and he wouldn't have been too suprised if the plugs were just burnt out and they'd had to find a new lot to park in. He wondered silently if Charlie would have gotten lost again trying to pull the RV into a new lot, if it was far enough away.

"So what is this place exactly? Did we stumble into-" Matt looked up to find the guy already wandered off with his little dog in tow. Weird crowd, but then he had that feeling they'd stumbled into a weird place.

Andy had only just gotten back inside the RV, meaning to get himself another drink, when he heard the commotion of Ana dropping the shoe and sliding backwards across the floor into the base of the fold out table.

"Hey did we leave the - oh man that's disgusting!" He said as he leaned over and looked into the shoe. "Mice? Man... In the camper?" He used his foot to scoot the dirty old shoe, and its passengers, to the door of the RV, and gave it a gentle push out the door and onto the ground. "Man we have to sleep here. Mice... bullshit." He shut the door, and turned to look back at Ana. "Man, I just came in here to scrounge for more beer. Where the hell did you find that old thing? And wherever that was, quit pokin around there."

Outside, Matt quizzically looked up as the door opened again, and he saw Andy kick an old shoe out of the RV, hearing him say 'bullshit' about something. Matt raised an eyebrow, and went over to see what the commotion was. Looking down into the shoe full of mice, he shook his head. "Man... leave that right by the door why don't you, jackass..." he mumbled to himself, picking the shoe up and carrying it, holding it away from himself, to the tree-line, and away from the campers.

[DragonGypsy]

((So sorry for disappearing again!))

The longer they spent in the office the more creeped out Mel began to feel. Dust motes drifted through the air in lazy patterns toward the grungy floor. It looked like it might be some sort of patterned tile, glimpses of yellow and blue peeking here and there from spots where it looked like a broom had been halfheartedly drug over the thick layer of grunge.
Slipping from Charlie's shoulders as he proceeded to attempt to pay for their first night, she curiously walked around the small office, her skin nearly crawling when she noticed a couple mouse traps in the corner. Long occupied from the looks of it.
An unstable looking stand displayed faded postcards and maps that looked as though they were a decade or so out of date. As for the beverages, she didn't even dare walk over there, even when Charlie asked about it.

Not even glancing up from her magazine the woman shrugged again, licking a finger before turning a page rather noisily.
"The cans are a buck and the bottle are a buck-fifty," She finally said, sounding about as bored as she looked, not even looking up when another camper pushed open the squeaky door, placed a five dollar bill on the counter before turning and leaving, tucking a small parcel of firewood under their arm before stepping off the sagging porch.
"Office closes in five minutes," The woman's voice broke the muffled silence, a hint of annoyance buried within their depths, as though she simply wanted her office back and didn't want to be bothered by any more patrons.


Before she could even say anything at all Andy seemed to have decided to take the entire matter into his own hands, kicking the shoe out of the door before returning.
"So go get your beer, I'm not keeping you from it," Ana replied, slightly annoyed at the tone he was taking, as though she'd conjured up the mice just to cause trouble. Pushing herself to her feet she sidled past toward the door, "And I'll poke around where I please." Her accent was thickening with her annoyance so she simply left it at that, pushing the door open with an agitated motion.

The coolness of the fresh air helped cool her own frustration, slightly. Ana didn't know what it was, but that guy got under her skin quicker than anyone she'd ever met before. If he decided to turn his attitude around and decide to be friendly enough to try get something from her he was going to have a rude awakening.
"Serve him right if I stuffed it in his sleeping bag," She muttered quietly, leaning against the side of the camper and glancing around in an effort to spot the shoe and it's little pink nest. It wasn't anywhere in sight, which didn't make sense, since Andy hadn't even left the camper when he booted it out.
At least, it didn't make sense until she caught sight of Matt's back as he walked away, the shoe dangling from his hand as he headed toward the trees.
Too bad, the sleeping bag idea was rather growing on her.

Wandering across the cracked pavement she made her way to a small picnic area with a few weathered tables and some fire rings. Climbing onto one of the tables she crossed her legs underneath her, crossing her arms over her knees and watching the lazy flow of the camping site as people went about their own business. It was that time of day that wasn't very active, just after the daily bustle, yet lagging right before the time of evening when people began pulling out boom boxes and starting all-night parties.
They weren't very interesting for very long, so it was no surprise when her attention began to wander from studying the peaks of the mountain, to studying a small red squirrel that seemed absolutely determined to sneak into one of the tents.

[guardj]

Charlie had an annoyed look on his face as the woman continually brushed them off. Customer service? What customer service? He shook his head a little, and as the other resident came in, paid for firewood and was gone again, he noticed the woman had never once so much as looked up at him. He looked back at Mel and smiled a little, an awkward, somewhat nervous gesture, and pointed to the door with a questioning look on his face. Not saying aloud, but indicating 'we should probably just be on our way, right?' He took the first steps to the door, holding it open for her, and motioning for her to lead the way. He scanned over the office one last time as she made her way out to the porch and back toward their camp, noticing the woman still hadn't taken the bills off the counter. He just shook his head.

Once the door shut and they were both outside, he looked to her again. "Some place, huh? I thought you said you got us to civilization babe? That's probably not the first word that I'd think of here. Guess it's better than sleeping on the road though. You wanna go see if they've figured out how to set up? Or is there anything else we need?"

Andy watched as the girl slid past him and made her way outside. He took a step further into the trailer, and turned to follow her with his eyes as she moved. But she was soon out the door, and he mumbled again. "Mice in the damn camper. Buncha' bullshit." Before he started digging through the various coolers and cases. He knew they had food in and among some of this, but he also knew he had packed more alcohol than what he'd found so far. He hadn't heard her comment about putting the shoe in to his sleeping bag. And in reality, he hadn't even given a thought yet to their setting up the camp. He hadn't any experience with the camping, so he was just worried more about having a good time, and figured he'd leave the planning stuff to Charlie and Mel. They were good at all that.

Matt, meanwhile was glad to see that the power finally clicked on, an indicator on the outlet lighting green, as the plugs finally started carrying their electricity into the camper. He nodded a little, in satisfaction, and turned to see Ana making her way over to sit at one of the picnic tables set up between their site and the adjoining one. He casually made his way over to her, and sat, not on the table, as she had done, but just on one of the benches in front of her.

"Well, we've got power now. Not sure when it's going to get dark around here. I don't see many overhead lights, so probably pretty early. I hate to break the peace and quiet here but I think we need to try to get the camp set up before we start losing daylight. And given Charlie's awful driving, I don't think that's gonna be much longer. So I'd say we should pick out some spots, and I'll go ahead and help everyone get set up. What are you watching here by the way?" He tried to follow her gaze, but couldn't find the squirrel, or even realize that was what had her attention. To his best guess, she was watching the people in the campsite across the divide, and so he kept his attention there as well, trying to decipher what it was that they could be doing that was so interesting.

Back inside the RV, Andy was having little luck. He knew he packed it. But it wasn't in any of the stacks in the floor compartments. Maybe in the luggage rack above the furniture. He kicked his shoes off, and stepped up onto the couch. Pulling the door to the rack open, he had to strain backwards to be able to see inside. He took a step back to get a better angle, and could feel his foot slip against the material of the couch.

From outside, as far away as where Matt and Ana sat, the commotion was clearly audible. "OOOOOOHSONOFABITCH!" Came Andy's voice, accompanied almost immediately by a loud thud, and followed shortly thereafter by a crash that sounded like something breaking.
They weren't very interesting for very long, so it was no surprise when her attention began to wander from studying the peaks of the mountain, to studying a small red squirrel that seemed absolutely determined to sneak into one of the tents.

[DragonGypsy]

"Hmm?" Ana glanced up curiously when Matt came over and sat down, her attention diverted from the mischievous little squirrel to the question he had asked. Running her finger absently over the coarse, peeling pits of paint that were flaking from the top of the picnic table, she nodded in reply to his statement about the power.
"That's good. Though, frankly, I have my doubts that the RV won't blow up the second we try to flip a light on or something like that. Which would be a fitting end to the thing, come to think of it."
Campsites for the tent sounded interesting, her eyes briefly following the contours of the campground, wondering where they were going to set up, here or somewhere outside the campground itself.

"Oh, I'm just watching a little burglar trying to get into someone's trailer," She smiled in a bemused manner, looking back toward the trailer where the squirrel had finally managed to slide through a tiny crack around the window. She was just about to explain, when a terrible ruckus exploded from their RV, the sound of crashing overshadowed by Andy's roaring.
"My, my, what can have happened. You don't suppose he found more mice, do you?" Honestly they probably should go check and see what had happened and if he was hurt. But in her reckoning, if he could holler like that that there couldn't be very much damage to him.
"It would probably be very, very unkind of me to say it's too bad he didn't knock himself out?" She asked innocently, knowing that even though she'd say it, her feet would most likely be carrying her in that direction in the next couple of seconds. Despite the annoyance she felt toward Andy, she wasn't the type to just ignore the fact that he might be hurt.

The hollering didn't seem to catch the attention of too many of the other residents, a few curious glances, but the people around here seemed to not be surprised about anything at all. Which wasn't exactly reassuring, even if it meant you wouldn't be bothered by nosy summer 'neighbors'.
It did, however, put into motion some sort of chain reaction - The hollering caused a large dog to start howling, which in turn startled a cat across the path of a smaller, fluffy white poodle that started a high pitch yapping, jerking against its leash in an attempt to go after the smaller animal. Once all that racket mixed together it send a flock of pigeons into the air, and what that might have caused Ana wasn't sure because she was giggling too hard.


"This is civilization, hon," Mel grinned cheekily as they left, throwing a drawl into her accent just because she felt like it. "I do believe these here parts are considered backwoods civilization, or hillbillies, or mayhap even rednecks, but I wouldn't dare mention that in front of them, we might find ourselves waking up in a ditch somewhere robbed of everything but our clothes!" She dropped to a whisper, hanging a little closer to him when a couple other people meandered by, most likely on their way toward the bonfire that had been lit a few yards away.
The throb of a boombox vibrated the ground beneath their feet, but a second later a new racket melded into the sound of music, oddly seeming to be coming from the general direction of their parking space.
"What in the world is going on?"

[guardj]

"Yes, well I didn't say everything was sound. I just said everything was on. I'm partly inclined to agree with you. Not that the whole thing will blow up the first time we try to use it, but we definitely shouldn't over use anything." Matt followed her eyes as she explained what she was watching. The squirrel tried its game here and there, finally getting into the trailer through an open window. He smiled. "It's been working okay so far, but you're right it's near its last legs at least. The RV is old, and probably can't take too much fluxuation. The power source over there doesn't look like it's in all that good a shape either, and it might not put out the best stream of power. So I'm betting we don't get the most reliable power out of this whole setup. Don't rely to heavily on the electicity then." And that was when they heard the commotion in the trailer. Andy had apparently... well it wasn't actually apparent what had happened. Though it was apparent that it had sparked some kind of awful ruckus from around the camp. A dog started barking and howling in response to the crash, which was only the first in a line of other loud, crazy things to happen. Cats and dogs and birds, as he saw Ana racked witha giggling fit. Matt only shook his head then, as she managed to settle down. It was rather amusing. Finally though, the two of them came to their senses, and decided to go check on the condition of at least the trailer, if not Andy.

Charlie heard the racket, and turned to look at his girlfriend with his eyebrows raised. "Uh... Mel? Did all that chaos just come from kinda the area we're parked in? Cause I just feel like that's the kind of day we've been having up to this point. If we - woah -" Charlie's questioning was cut off as a flock of birds swept by too close to their heads for his comfort, and he stumbled a little as he tried to take a step backward. "Damn birds! What was that about? You okay Mel? I think we really need to get back to the trailer. Sounds like something big happened. And either way, I think it's getting a little cartoony out here."

By the time Matt and Ana made it to the trailer, the noises seemed to have died down. Matt tugged the door open, and the sight that greeted him, though he knew he should be more worried about Andy's condition, caused him nothing but to laugh hystericaly. Andy had been standing on the couch when his feet slipped off of the fabric, causing him to slide backwards off of his improvized stool, and pull down the various pieces of luggage he had been rifling through, down on top of himself, unfortunately breaking some of the chinaware that was stacked on the counter behind him. The first thing they saw as the opened the door was then, Andy, on his back, wedged between the counter and the couch, laying on his shoulders and neck, with his feet high up in the air, and a few various pieces of luggage laying on his chest, keeping him pinned to the ground.

"Oh hey guys." He grunted as they found him in his prediciment. "So... I found where we packed the tents. Heh heh... Um... little help here. I can't move my arms to lift this stuff off of me while I'm pinned up against the couch. And I can't get out from the couch with this stuff laying on my chest. Kind of a catch twenty two here..."
"What in the world is going on?"