a tale of two trips

Last week, we as a family attempted something that had been talked about for a while, something that in theory sounded fun and exciting, something that would require a great fortitude that we just weren't sure we had a year or two ago.  But we finally decided it was time.

Camping.

Now, here's the history.  The way hubby grew up, camping meant packing as light as possible, shoving everything into a canoe and paddling out to a deserted island to live off the land for a few days.  Well, maybe they were allowed to pack some food to subsist on, but the way he describes it, including the very, very important fact that they were never allowed to bring their pillows, this is how I imagine it.  Camping was a part of my childhood as well, except it involved going to a campground, choosing a campsite for its proximity to the bathrooms, pitching our tent (or even using a trailer), and me avoiding as much contact with nature as possible.  Bugs, heat and bodies of water that weren't chlorinated were not so much my thing back in the day.  (I'm okay with the bugs now, the heat only mildly annoys me, but you still won't find me swimming in anything but a pool!

For our family's first ever camping trip, we kind of made our own standard.  Yes, it was an established campsite at the Cunningham Falls State Park in Thurmont, MD, and yes, hubby did a fabulous job choosing a site that had electrical hookups, was very close to the bathhouse, and was right next to a water pump-- all attributes that made this anxious camper very relieved.  We made extensive packing lists, watched weather.com like a cubicle resident watches the clock, and finally got ourselves and practically everything we own into the van and were on our way.

How was the weekend, you ask?  Well, I guess it depends on how you look at it...

• The original plan had three families going, so I reserved two sites, but one family dropped out a couple weeks before the trip, and I found out that I had until close of business on Thursday to cancel one site, which would incur a small fee, but not the whole two night charges.  Guess who didn't remember about this until 8:15 Thursday evening?  Dammit.  That means a split cost of $120 instead of $60.  Dammit.
• Hubby played his regular Friday morning basketball game, and I inadvertently stayed in bed about an hour longer than I intended.  (Those NPR morning voices lulled me back to sleep...)  The rest of the morning was insane- trying to gather and pack things with children in my hair, bugging me for things like breakfast and attention... ugh.  
• Went through the packing lists, even highlighting things as I got them set, but apparently was a little more distracted than I realized, because I crossed several things off without actually packing them.  Who needs grill utensils or a colander for cooking, huh?  Oh yeah, us.
• Our van is just not big enough for lots of stuff plus five people.  The middle row is two separate seats, so it's not like we could have squeezed JAM between the two carseats, either.  Instead, poor JAM was surrounded on all sides by stuff in the back.  The van weighed a ton and made my usual slightly-nervous passenger experience even more nervous.  
• The kids played, and the first aid kit was put into much use.  Three times, skinned knees needed to be tended.  Same kid, same knee.  Poor Pudge and his tendency to fall down a lot.  (Our friends' son had a similar experience, so band-aid usage was high overall.)
• After a day of playing outside, we were all pretty filthy, and I didn't want the kids climbing into their beds with a layer of dirt, sunscreen and bug spray, so off to the showers we went.  Taking a shower with Red and Pudge and 7 stinkbugs wasn't too fun, especially when the shower has a seat taking up a 1/4 of the space-- it was lovely to realize afterward just how far our voices carried from the vent in the bathhouse wall.  Wonder how many people shook their heads at the crazy mom saying "scoot over!" a bazillion times?
• My biggest concern about camping going into this-- bedtime.  And man, oh man, did I ever have a right to be worried.  Our kids, in the tent together, trying to go to sleep?  Ha ha ha ha ha.  Lots and lots of whining, jumping, messing around and parental rebukes that probably scared our friends just a little bit.  Images of the adults staying up by the fire, playing cards or just chatting were not so much realized that first night.  
• Saturday morning brought some welcome sunshine, which was nice, but also approximately 7,309 song birds perched in the trees surrounding our tent.  Waking to an Alfred Hitchcock movie and three insanely awake children at 5:45 am was not what I signed up for. 
• When the rain began on Saturday afternoon, it seemed light enough to just add a little fun to the festivities.  We didn't bargain on it turning to buckets of water falling from the sky by sundown and continuing all night long, essentially turning our site into a small pond.  Enter soaked clothing, muddy paths and a measure of crankiness.
• Sunday morning saw the rain continuing and no way to cook or eat breakfast at the site.  Of course, though, as soon as the van was all packed back up, what decided to peek through the clouds again??  Oh yes.  
• And did I mention?  I was offline for over 48 hours.  No blogging.  No Facebook.  No email.  No twitter.  

Now, while no parts of that account were made up, I think I prefer this perspective of the weekend:

• Friday morning involved a surprising coming together of the lists and the items for packing- overwhelming to see it all laid out, but pretty confident that a vast majority of the items would be useful or potentially useful under a variety of circumstances.  (And though not every single item was used, and a couple key items were forgotten, overall it worked out very, very well!)
• We somehow made it all fit (and when I say "we," I of course am referring to hubby) and even carved out a spot for JAM to put his legs.  Amazingly enough, even though we left around noon, both Red and Pudge fell asleep fairly quickly into the drive, and JAM had a book in the back, as I did in the front seat, so it was a surprisingly peaceful ride.
• As soon as we checked in and got to our sites, I beamed with joy at my forgetfulness.  Thank goodness I forgot to cancel the second site, because there was just not enough room on one for both our and our friends' large tents, plus the "kids' play tent" that we had packed.  Come to find out, too, that there was a maximum of 6 people and 1 vehicle per site, so it wouldn't have worked out on any level.  So, we set up both sites' picnic tables on ours and made one large food storage/prep/eating area for the nine of us, and we all got right to unpacking and getting settled.
• The kids instantly got on their bikes and scooters, and thanks to a piece of sidewalk chalk in our travel art kit, the boundaries for Red and Pudge were drawn on the road, and everyone stayed safe and needed only minimal supervision while we got set up.
• The "kids' play tent" idea was awesome!  The various animal figures, bristle blocks, matchbox cars, books, and art materials all provided much entertainment over the course of the weekend, and all five kids played so well together!
• We personified the whole hunter/gatherer dynamic when the men went off to purchase the food we needed and we women stayed back to blow up air mattresses, make beds and set up the dining area.  That made my friend and I laugh, but it also seemed perfectly fitting.
• Yes, we brought amenities-- blow up mattresses for everyone-- me and hubby on one side of the tent, Pudge on a small one in the middle, and JAM and Red on another queen on the other side.  We brought a small fan to have on in the tent, for cooling and also white noise, as well as a small light for reading by before bedtime.  Christmas lights were strung around the site with care, with hopes that no one would laugh at us there.  And yes, we even packed hubby's laptop and some kids' DVDs.  Just in case.
• Friday afternoon and evening were beautiful- nice temperature, sunshine, just perfect.  By the time we all packed it in for the night (albeit after a shower & bedtime process that wasn't terrific), it was nice to lay down and close my eyes.  Thankfully, everyone eventually stopped chatting, poking, bugging, annoying, etc.
• Red made a discovery that thrilled her, and we soon realized would be a repeated experience all weekend-- millipedes!  Oh, they were so neat, and while no one wanted to hold them, we had much fun spotting them everywhere again and again.  There will even have to be a future post about Daddy, "Hero of the Millipedes."  Stay tuned.
• Saturday morning came early, and yes I was frustrated to see 5:45 on my phone display.  But, I had just woken from a dream I was having in which we were woken by excited children and I asked hubby the time, and he replied, "4:15!  Four!  Fifteen!"  So, in comparison, 5:45 could have been a whole lot worse.
• We tried to keep the kids occupied by playing some of the card & board games that we had packed, but there is just no way to keep our three quiet and still.  So, just after 6:00 am, we opted to take a family walk out of the campsite loop and down to see if there was wood to be gathered for a fire.  (Hubby had difficulty locating many palettes when he was in town-- his preferred free and effective wood option).  Wouldn't you know it that we didn't see or hear any other families awake at this time?  Huh.  Guess we're just lucky.
• The sounds of birds may have disrupted our sleep, but it was also such an amazing change from the crescendo of traffic and sirens that usually accompany our outdoor experiences at home.  (And our indoor ones, too, once open-windows-season begins.)  So much fun listening for woodpeckers' tapping and robins' "cheer-up-cheerily" calls.  Our beloved bird book was fun to use together to try to identify some of the songs we heard. 
• The stinkbugs were everywhere, but thanks to our many experiences last year during our bug study, the kids weren't afraid or annoyed, but generally interested!  We even saw one that was completely bright green- a different color than we had seen before.
• We all went out for a hike, and we were surprised to run into friends of ours- friends who are MUCH more experienced campers and just happened to be there that weekend camping with friends of theirs.  Yay for seeing you, Corinne!
• Red and Pudge even took a nap on Saturday afternoon (okay, I did, too for a little while, I admit it), and JAM went with our friends down to the lake to go fishing.  Guess who was the only one to catch a fish?  Oh, his Pepe will be so proud.
• We all joined them at the lake after naptime for much sandy play on the beach and the joy of finding a slew of tadpoles-- many even at the in-between stage where their legs are starting to sprout, but their tails are still long.  We had a blast scooping them up into the little cooler filled with sandy water.  Well, that is until the official voice came over the intercom reminding everyone that it was inappropriate to disturb the natural environment and wildlife, including the tadpoles.  Quick!  Everyone dump the cooler and buckets!
• The sprinkles began on the beach, which I thought made it more fun, but caused the beach, and the adjoining playground, to be closed, so we all went back to the site to hunker down for the evening.
• Thankfully, during that naptime that I shared with the kids, hubby was hard at work securing a tarp over most of our eating area.  (The purchase of a canopy at Target Friday morning turned out to not include the actual frame, so he had to go the old-fashioned route of a big old tarp and helluva lot of rope.)
• The rain made it more challenging to cook dinner (more hot dogs and pasta and raw veggies, kids!), but we did succumb to the usefulness of modern technology.  The kids watched a movie on the laptop, while the adults cooked and then ate dinner.  Once the movie was over, the kids took the few dry spots under the tarp and ate theirs.  It got a little cozy under that tarp, but we managed to only get a little damp.
• After dinner, though, it was all bets off.  The rain was coming down in buckets, and we knew that everyone was going to need showers again before bed, so we put the raincoats on and went for a puddle-splashing, rain-drenched family walk once again.  Some of us liked the rain and puddles a little more than others, as the photos below demonstrate.  Wanna take a guess at who was less than thrilled at being soaked?
• We did eventually get everyone cleaned up and tucked into bed, and with the pounding rain, and we even opted to not even try to fight the bedtime fight, and being the fabulous parents that we are, we put on yet another movie for our kids to watch once they were in PJ's and piled onto our bed.  This allowed the adults to sit under the tarp (which needed more and more frequent draining) and play a few hands of cards.  That was more like it.
• When the movie was over, we all turned in for the night, and the feel of the rain drops hitting the side of the tent that draped down on the edge of my side of the bed was amazing.  The pattering rain quickly lulled me to sleep, and the beauty of it was that I couldn't hear if the kids were still making noise, and I knew that it would be impossible for them to be bothering anyone on other sites, either.  So, I fell asleep quickly!
• And we didn't even wake up until after 7 am on Sunday morning!  Woo-hoo!  Rather than try to cook in the still coming down rain, the five of us and 2/4 of our friends' crew headed off to a local restaurant for what I dubbed the Breakfast of Shame.  The buffet included scrambled eggs that could be topped with some processed cheese food sauce (hubby got that at one point, and it didn't even taste good), some sort of either sausage and gravy or creamed chipped beef (that was low on either sausage and beef, whatever it was supposed to be), and of course, chocolate donuts.  Breakfast dessert.  Good times.  Many, many cartons of chocolate milk were drained, but for about $20 for all five of us, it got us something food-like and a dry place to eat it.
• Thankfully, the rain slowed to a drizzle for the taking down of camp and packing up, but there was still some crankiness on everyone's part-- how to keep these children entertained when we're trying to work quickly and effectively is a challenge.  But we were once again all packed up eventually and on our way back home.  
• Sleeping and reading were the main activities for the ride once again, although there was much more sleepiness on the adults' parts this time.  I got to read most of two books over the weekend- one short novel (which was blech) and one YA novel (which was fabulous), so I could even cross things off my review-to-do-list as a result!
• Overall, every single one of us returned with fond memories of our first ever camping trip, and we're all excited to give it another go in August!  But, the next adventure will be a bit more rustic, since there will be no electricity (ack!), and we'll be closer to the ocean, this time heading to Cape Henlopen State Park in Lewes, DE.  No ability to just drive back home quickly if the weather turns VERY sour, no plugged in amenities, and a camp site seriously further away from the bathhouse.  Hmmmm... wonder how that blog post will read in a few months...
• And did I mention?  I was just fine being offline for over 48 hours.  I still had the burning need to get some thoughts out of my head and down into writing, but without the mini-form of twitter and Facebook or the longer program of emails and blogging, I took a little time to write them down using a pen and an actual paper journal.  The two entries are definitely sloppy and not well-formed (I love you, backspace button!), but they serve as "my thoughts exactly" for this particular weekend.

And because this post was WAY heavy on words, I've got to balance it out a bit in pictures-- here's a little slideshow of the events.  There are never enough pictures, because sometimes we're just too busy being to document the moment, but this is a sampling of the good pics that we do have.

camping may 2010 on PhotoPeach



Until I'm "forced" to live outdoors again,