I grew up camping. The Kwas fam had a massively large, canvas tent with multiple rooms. Kinda like the taj mahal of outdoor living. We'd set up shop with 2 other families for a week at a time. My parents had it down to a science and us kids loved every minute of it. I can remember laying in the tent as the light of early morning started peeking it's cheerful face, watching the drops of dew trickle down the walls around me. Breakfast would be ready on the camping grills, a fire already started. Camping was the life.
A lot changes over 20 years. Since then I've gained an affinity for the finer things in life. A mattress under my back, the ability to wash my hands and maybe even shower once in a while, electricity....I've become an accommodations snob. I know this about myself and therefore I decided that going back to my camping roots was the best remedy for my snobbery.
I got an incling one afternoon in May to research camping options and ended up booking 2 sites at a mountain campground near Idaho Springs for this past weekend. Done. We were officially going camping. My husband was floored and quite pleased with my gusto. We convinced the Syers to join the ranks, adding to the fun factor. I started planning 2 weeks out and had bins of every item under the sun, ready to roll. I put on my optimistic hat and talked up the concept of sleeping in a tent and not having the ability to care about personal hygiene to Dude as the time drew closer. He was pumped!
We loaded, and I mean LOADED, the car. Thanks to the Sheas for their much needed Thule container.
After an hour car ride up some sweet switchbacks and 3 miles of unpaved road, we arrived at a beautiful campsite. Nestled in a forest of aspens with a rushing river running through out backyard, we were quite pleased with our surroundings. Tim and Wes got to work on our tent since they had arrived earlier and already set up camp.
Note, their tent is quite impressive. 3 spacious rooms for their family of 5. Upon setting our "spacious" tent up, we soon realized that we hadn't really accounted for the 2 new bodies in our family since we purchased the tent as a wedding gift to each other. Mmmm..no room for our air mattress. Which meant we would sleep on the gravel and pine cone ridden slab. Flat on our backs. We didn't think much of this as we set up and carried on with camping festivities.
Squirt did a whole lot of bailing at the beginning but soon mastered the navigation of rocks and divots and acted like she owned the place.
The 70 degree temps were a welcomed change from the 90's back home.
Luckily, the fire ban was lifted. Camping sans a fire would have been the pits.
Just another dirty campin' kid!
Who's the hottie by the campfire? That's my husband. I got to share a plot of dirt with him.
Around 9:00pm, we got out of the spitting drizzle and put the kids to bed. A totally foreign concept to our kids, but miraculously, they both went right to sleep. Squirt was out cold within 2 minutes and after about 20 minutes of sticking his head out the door, Dude drifted off too. We came to bed a couple hours later after some adult campfire comrodery, giggled for a while and proceeded to lay awake until, oh, 4:00am. We longed for our air mattress, heard every noise our dear children made in their sleep, watched the cheapo tent sway with every wind gust, whined about our poor backs, got up to pee multiple times (which was a 3 minute walk to the bathroom outhouse building), convinced ourselves (me really) that there were vampires and bears circling our sleeping quarters....the sleeping wasn't a highlight. For us adults that is.
The morning brought these irresistible faces, making the loooooong night well worth it. They rolled around the sleeping bag filled tent like it was Christmas morning while Tim and I moaned about the state of our sore and tired bodies. You'd think we were 80 years old.
So, Dude was trying to put his pants on and was struggling. Mmmm...could be because they were his 19 month old sister's pants. Note, he was able to successfully pull them up AND button them.
This is how the pants were meant to be worn. By a little baby girl.
See our little tiny tent back there in the distance? Overshadowed by the Syers plastic mansion.
A beautiful escape.
Getting ready for their nature scavenger hunt.
Wes and his hooter hider.
Cara found these larger than life marshmallows, which turned out to be one of the highlights of the weekend for our children.
Hands down, the heaviest item Dude has ever lifted. I was so proud.
These two had us cracking up. They played on these coolers for an hour. Talking in their own language, cleaning the tops with dirty towels, moving the water bottles back and forth, hugging...soooo spankin' cute.
Squirt's face above depicts how Tim and I felt about spending another 8 hours laying on the gravel road, so we decided to go home around 8:00pm Saturday night with two tired and nasty dirty kids instead of leaving Sunday morning. Are we wusses? Think what you wish, but we slept for 9 hours at home that night and enjoyed every second of it. Next year we'll have a new tent in tow, which will fit our air mattress. And we'll find a site with a nice soft patch of earth to call home. We live and we learn, but I would coin this inaugural camping trip as a success. Thanks Syers! Twas a weekend to remember.
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