"I used to be confused by them, but now I think I understand those people out there who refuse to go camping."
I, however, will not be starting this post out that way.
Because that would be admitting defeat.
And I tend to be a fairly stubborn person (I guarantee right now my family is laughing at the use of the word "fairly").
A couple weeks ago, thinking ourselves brave souls, we decided to take our little boy on his very first camping trip.
This trip was entirely planned, orchestrated and anticipated by myself, and entirely dreaded, tolerated and complained about by my husband.
The point of this trip was for me to prove something....to myself? to my husband? to the world? (nope, definitely not that one)...and that was the fact that we could indeed break the 'never been camping with kids' barrier. I guess I'll throw in there too that I happened to be 33 weeks pregnant as well, but I was far less worried about that part than I was about the rambunctious toddler part.
Anyways, the trip started out splendidly.
My hubs did a great job packing the car up nicely, and I think little Will was rather anticipating the whole thing:
We found a prime site right on the river
William did his best to
He had a blast running around inside this new (garage-sale-find) large tent.
It was a LOVELY fall September day. Crisp blue cloudless sky, leaves just starting to turn, and about 72 perfect degrees.
Great day to hit an apple orchard, which is just what we did.
There was plenty of entertainment (and delicious cider donuts and cider) for all.
After stuffing ourselves on donuts and cider, we headed back to our campsite.
Well, I guess I would be remiss and painting a false rosy picture if I didn't mention that....
On the way to the orchard, one member of our group got ticketed for speeding.
And we drove about 20-30 miles too far to the wrong orchard.
And we didn't buy apples because they were exorbitantly priced.
Nope, nor will I leave out the fact that the camping trip ended in a big, failing, epic flop of a puddle. Literally. It started pouring around 3 am and did not let up.
Needless to say...no lovely morning sunshine to wake up to, no warm campfire to have coffee, cider donuts and fried bacon.
Nope, just wet, sandy, soggy mess. And throw a toddler into the mix. And did I mention it was a walk-in campsite? Which means, everyone had to make about 5 trips carting assorted camping gear 400 feet or so in the rain. Fun times :)
This guy recently blogged about spaces in Dante's inferno...I think there should be a special ring reserved for meteorologists who inaccurately report weather prior to a planned camping trip.
However - rather than focusing on the negative (and reminding my husband of the reasons that he never wants to go camping again), I choose to remember the positives. We had a lovely day, and ended with a lovely evening campfire.
And this little guy got to eat...
All in all, it was not the world's best camping trip. But it was still fun. And I'm still glad my baby sis came home from college to join us.
