The Worst Camping Trip. Ever.

Thursday after swim lessons ended, we drove our groaning car to Cuivre River State Park for some good camping fun. I love love camping and John mainly like likes camping. But, we both were excited about experiencing William's first camping trip. John had Friday off of work, the temperatures weren't supposed to be super hot, there was only a 40% chance of rain, and campsites were available at the state park half an hour away from our house. Should be a good time, right?

To start off, I thought I should fill some of you in about the Things I love about camping (this is for those of you who consider camping to be staying at a Motel 6):

-waking up in the cool morning air -realizing I don't have anywhere else to be and snuggling down into my sleeping bag to enjoy the sounds of the morning.
-Waking up together as a family in the same tent. Taking it slow in the morning and talking, snuggling, and really enjoying each other's company.
-The sounds: the wind in the trees, the birds, the crackling fire, the waves hitting the beach
-Hiking the trails with our camera
-Cooking outside
-Eating a lot more junk food than usual (I don't think it is physically possible for us to camp without eating an entire bag of marshmallows per evening)
-Hot chocolate and oatmeal in the mornings
-Being away from everything and spending time together as a family without worrying about: bills, lawn mowing, garbage schedules, laundry, or expiration dates of items in the fridge.
-Hiking socks - I don't know why. They just make my day.


That being said, there are a lot of things I don't love about camping. Mainly, it is a lot of work to get all the stuff you need together and bugs. I know I'm supposed to be a science teacher, but I hate bugs.

So, we drove to the state park and arrived later than planned (I almost always arrive later than planned, it is part of what makes me so attractive). It was almost an hour and a half past dinner time and people were getting crabby. On the way into the park, we decided that dinner was the priority and after that we would focus on setting up camp. We checked in, picked a sweet site near (but not too near) the bathrooms and water and began scrambling around with dinner. Here is where the comedy begins:

-We packed hamburgers to grill on our camping grill. John got everything set up while I chased William. After much grumbling, I went over to find that our propane tank was empty. Which meant no hamburgers.

-But! Wait! No problem! We also packed our lightweight backpacking campstove and we had a number of dehydrated meals options to choose from. So I got William out of the cooking area and went to pay for our campsite. John met me on the road to inform me the last time we bought fuel for the cookstove, we bought the wrong type of canister and the cookstove would not connect to the fuel. Which meant no dehydrated meals.

-It is now almost 8pm and it is starting to get dark. An evening walk along the beach or an exhuastive trip to the camp playground plans were starting to fade. John decided to run to a gas station just outside of the park to see if they have any fuel that will work with either our stove/grill. It is about a 45 minute round trip drive, so William and I stay behind to set up the tent.

-Our tent is super easy to set up. With two people working together. With one person working and the other person pulling the tent poles out or pushing them over, it is an extremely difficult tent to set up. What usually is a 8 minute job took me over 40 minutes to complete. Without attaching the rain fly or staking the tent (forshadowing).

-John returned with fuel (YAY!) and I decide to feed William a banana to delay the hunger induced temper tantrum that has to be just around the corner any minute. Surprisingly, John and I are the ones who are suffering from the hungry crabbiness. We are sniping at each other and trying to hold it together long enough to get food on (the very dirty) picnic table. Surely, once we have food in us, the situation will become humorous instead of horrible. William is more than happy to wander around the campsite and poke the same stick into the same dirt patch over and over again for hours on end.

-On the way back to the campsite, John thought he saw lightning in the distance and to be safe, he grabbed the weather radio out of the car and set it up while he was cooking. Within two minutes, the weather radio was blaring a severe thunderstorm warning with winds in excess of 60 miles per hour. At that point, we started moving a little quicker around the campsite. We put away stuff we were using and weighted down other items - all the while trying to will the hamburgers to cook quicker.

-Within 5 minutes (probably less), the wind around us really picked up. Things started blowing away (like the tent and tarp, in two different directions). Thirty seconds later it was raining. Raining hard and dark because of the clouds and the sun going down. We tossed William in the car to "drive" and threw as much of our stuff into the back of the truck as fast as we could. Everything was soaked, including the tent because it didn't have the rain fly up yet. The car was full of bugs that are forever present at dusk, attracted to the lights in the back of the truck.

-Notice we haven't had anything to eat yet? I fed William a every popular breakfast bar in the car while John attempted to keep the grill going long enough to cook our burgers. It was now after 8:30pm.

-Soon, the burgers were done and there was a mad scramble around in the car trying to find plates and other condiments to eat out of. Everything was wet and a MESS from being blown around not to mention it was no longer organized at ALL. John got a plate, William and I shared a pot lid.

-As we ate and the weather raged around us in the truck (William's comment: "Raining?" Yep, sure is), John and I discussed our options. It was now dark. Everything that was outside is now VERY wet. Given it stopped raining, it was going to be difficult to set up camp in the dark with a busy 19 month old toddler in tow. The rain showed no signs of slowing and our weather radio voices promised several hours of lightning/thunder/small hail/winds into the night. Disappointed, we decided it was time to drive home.

Recap for the lazy reader: We tried to camp. Stuff went wrong. We went home.

Throughout the whole ordeal, William was perfect. He needed a lot of reminders to not climb things like the fire pits or picnic tables or not to wander off into the brush that was taller than him. Other than those reminders, he was very well behaved and happy to roll with whatever was dealt to us. We got home close to an hour after bedtime and I noticed William was filthy. Filthy is fine for tent camping. But, not for crib sleeping. So, into the tub he went (very happily, I might add) and then down to sleep.

All in all it totally stunk, but I think we have a better idea about what will work next time. It can only get better right?



**I would include a picture here, but I didn't even take any pictures - we were too busy running around!