How I Managed 4 Days in the Wilderness

This past Labor Day weekend I went camping. When my family first invited me I was all excited. With four days out in the wilderness I could pretend to be a hermit and gather my thoughts and refill my creative well. I envisioned days of reading,having brilliant ideas and catching up with the family. I knew that there would be no wifi or even phone service at the campground. I thought surely 4 days of being disconnected from the world won’t hurt me. I was very very very mistaken. The first night I had the beginnings of Internet and phone withdrawal. I am the kind of person who always has my phone in my hand most of the time and it is almost always vibrating. That night as it sat strangely silent I felt somewhat discombobulated and hoped nothing important was sitting in my email box.
I woke up the second day and checked my phone out of habit. Of course nothing was there. I decided that I was going to go take pictures and go fishing and all of that stuff. I took my camera and walked around snapping pictures. I was still feeling a little off. I look back now and I am amazed. I mean this is some scenery I was surrounded in:

That looks like the perfect place to escape from today’s technology right? In reality I was in a tizzy and I had about thirty minutes of false hope when I discovered my mom’s phone had a hotspot until I realized without 3G service it was worthless.
It also rained two out of the 4 days and I don’t care how fancy an RV is. Being stuck in one while you have NO INTERNET is a living hell. I did read three books, but still, with everyone smushed in around me I was going stir crazy. I felt like that dude in the Shining, instead of snow it was a monster thunderstorm that was keeping me inside. In my journal I even wrote “I am slowly going insane. If someone bumps into me or walks back and forth or anything one more time I just might snap and do something regrettable”. I wasn’t the only one complain though. My cousins kids were really mad when it started to howl and the wind was blowing at top speeds. No internet and stuck in a tiny little RV? NOT A FUN VACATION!
I think the majority of the reason I was so pissed was because this is the first family gathering that I went to where I had lost all of my hearing. My mom is the only one that can sign so every time someone wanted to talk to me we had to go hunt down my mother and she would act as an interpreter. I never realized how much I depended up on my hearing aids until they did not work for me anymore. My speech reading skills have really went downhill. My speech is still clear which is good. I can talk fine but, understanding the other person is a problem. I have gone camping with other Deaf people and enjoyed the hell out of it. Being the only Deaf person in a big group of people? Well that is a somewhat different story. Over all I enjoyed my self enough to want to do it again. Hopefully next time I won’t be in such a tizzy over no Internet and can relax fully and enjoy myself.