How did it go? fine. Not great, but not bad either. Frankly, anything that isn’t a catastrophe can’t be all that bad, can it? That is, nobody got hurt. There wasn’t a lot of squabbling and overall more fun was had than not. I felt that the set-up and tear-down phases of the event were much more significant than they should have been. That is, there was only a single night of camping, but it took us 60 - 90 minutes to set up and 60 minutes to tear everything down again. It seemed like the amount of “play time” was outweighed by the amount of work-time.
Nonetheless, the kids all want to do it again. And I’d like to do it again, too — but without a two-year old. Grace is really a well behaved and well-intentioned little kid, but like all little kids she requires a certain amount of attention. We’ve set up our home to make it easier to deal with the requirements small children bring, but camping was somewhat different. She was good around the fire and tended not to wander off, but only because we really kept our eyes on her. I had wanted to go fishing, but couldn’t bring her with me if I did that. Liz had been a real “trooper” and had helped a lot with setting everything up. She needed a chance to relax so I took the kids to a nice playground where the kids played on swings and slides and I showed them how to play horse shoes.
They all had a great time. When we got back Liz was working on getting a fire going so we could cook dinner. I think the whole dinner-process consumed the following two hours or so. We did hotdogs and s’mores. Liz had prepared some great looking biscuits, but sadly when they were put in the fire their bottoms got badly burnt. The kids found lots of bugs to play with. Chloe found a giant moth-wing.
I eventually took the kids to a nearby field where there were some horse shoe pits and a sandy volleyball court. We watched about 30 boy scouts play volleyball while I helped the kids brush up on their blackjack and “Go Fish”. I don’t think any of the kids got to bed before 9pm. I know Grace didn’t fall asleep until about 10pm.
I got to see millions of stars! That was nice. For the last 15 years or so I’ve lived outside major metropolitan areas precluding any decent star-gazing. Over the last couple of years I’ve been particularly interested in taking in the vastness. I got to do that on Saturday night. I think those 10 minutes made everything else worthwhile. It was very peaceful and restful.
Which is in stark contrast to the rest of the night. I hardly slept a wink. Its not because it was uncomfortable or anything — we had very cool self-inflating pads under our mattresses. It was cold — 55 degrees or so. And my pillow was moist and the sleeping bag was clammy. I wasn’t used to sleeping on the ground so I tossed and turned all night long. For hours I waited for the sun to come up. Liz had it worse. She had all the same symptoms I did, except that Grace had gotten spooked during the night and needed to be held. Grace kicked Liz all night long or slept on her pillow.
By the time the sun finally started coming up the kids slowly started waking. Chloe woke up really happy! I was surprised and pleased by that. Although it was quite chilly at 6am Chloe happily accompanied me to the bath-house where we took care of our morning duties. Due to the unpleasant and uncomfortable night I expected to hardly be able to move on Sunday, but after a short walk all was well! The sun shone on the fields and warmed us up. By the time I got back the boys were ready to help me start hauling our gear back to the car and Liz was setting about rolling sleeping bags and gathering up belongings.
She wanted to get out of there as much as I did. And don’t get me wrong; we weren’t in a panic and we weren’t angry or bitter about our first family camping experience. But we were hungry, dirty, cold and uncomfortable. We knew it would take a while to get a fire going for breakfast and that we didn’t want to wait that long. I was already feeling a little ill for not having eaten much lunch or dinner — my own fault, of course.
So, neither of us wanted to waste any time in getting to breakfast. Still, it took us about an hour to break down the tent and get everything packed in the van again. The kids were great helpers. They contributed a fair amount to moving our stuff.
At the golden arches we sat next to a senior citizen who kept stealing glances at me and my filthy family. I was starting to wonder what the judgmental old man was thinking. I imagined all kinds of rude thoughts that must have been going through his head. Eventually he kind of nudged me and with a wink he said “Happy Father’s Day”
We spent the rest of the day getting home and resting up. We treated ourselves to a batch of Krispy Kreme doughnuts and a dinner at Outback Steak House. I think we were all so exhausted that barely anything got done. We managed to get 90% of our gear stowed. We all took showers and baths to get the grime out.
So, in summary it was a good adventure and I’m sure we’ll do it again sometime, but not with anyone who is as small as Grace. I’ve put some pictures up at http://summer2k4.blogrilla.com. I’m not happy with the presentation, but I’ll see if I can work out the kinks and improve it.
Sphere: Related Content
Tags: Uncategorized by Private Idaho
No Comments »