We went camping this weekend with our little dude. It was our first family camping trip.
Our one night camping adventure was supposed to serve a dry run. Would our camping gear for two adults be sufficient for an ankle-biter too? We booked a spot in a private campground east of the city (all national and provincial campgrounds were booked, note to self: plan ahead). I’m not going to lie, it was a little stressful. We left town kind of late afternoonish. We packed our station wagon tight but it didn’t seem like enough. It was hot, we were all sweaty and slightly anxious. We should’ve left earlier. We should’ve packed an extra pillow. We should’ve grabbed a giant bottle of water when we went grocery shopping during the week.
Going camping for just one night, for less than 24 hours seemed silly, almost like it wasn’t worth it. Once we arrived at the campground, picked a site and set up our temporary casa the thin layer of stress peeled off. We played in a warm lake, we watched a lot of tattooed twenty-somethings get schmessy drunk, we listened to all kinds of hard rock echoing through the campground, we drank a couple beers ourselves.
For dinner my partner enacted some serious campfire hack-genuity and cooked our two deliciously marinated chicken breasts on a stick because the fire pit lacked a grill. Our little guy ran around barefoot, ate thimbleberries, marvelled at bumblebees, kicked/threw/chewed his ball, climbed the picnic tables like they were jungle gyms. We all cuddled up seamlessly in our little tent and woke up to have some cooked-directly-on-the-fire-coffee (again my super camper partner basically held the coffee maker over the burning logs, hence, gloves). For breakfast we continued our meat on a stick theme with bacon.
The tiny camping trip was a complete success! We figured out what supplies we’ll need next time. We know how to jenga our supplies into our camp car. More importantly we found out our son is a natural camper. Less than 24 hours after we arrived, we left our camp spot smelling like campfire and sweat. We were grubby and happy. So next time you want to do something like this but it seems like a royal pain in the butt? Do it. Who cares about the packing and driving and unpacking. It is all worth it.
Sometimes a short getaway like this feels like several days – in a good way. I had that experience this apast weekend – felt like 4 days not two. Very worthwhile.
It was amazing how quickly we decompressed and eased into becoming bush-folk again. It was especially lovely waking up to the birds and countryside quiet.