Weekday camping trip

School just ended and already our lives are getting sneakily too busy for some of the unscripted fun I was hoping to accomplish this summer and we're needing the weekends to take care of some necessary home-centric things. Before the busy-ness takes hold, I decided to take the kids camping this week. It gave them a chance to do something other than sit around and ask when they could watch TV again and it gave me a chance to take the pop-up out on my own and see if I could really handle it (I can!).

We opted for a nearby state park that is about 45 minutes away. The park is pretty new and has miles of hiking trails, a playground, an amazing 18 hole frisbee golf course and horse camping & trails. Right behind our campsite, in between the East and West loops was a small 3 hole frisbee golf course that was very entertaining for the get up and go set I was camping with.

Despite some damp, cool weather and leaving all the non-chocolate ingredients for Trail Mix and S'mores at home, the trip was a great success. The camper really earned its keep as an easy, comfortable place to entertain ourselves during occasional downpours. Since we are raising Oregonians, the kids were less disturbed by the sporadic enthusiastic rainstorms than I would have been at their ages. Our luck turned with the emergence of sunshine in the afternoon and we explored 10 of the 18 holes of frisbee golf (insider tip - there is no basket for hole #7!). We'll be going back to finish the course, that's for sure!

Because I have a penchant for over-preparing for camping meals, I was able to redeem my campfire cred with some wickedly wonderful banana boats (forget the marshmallows, use peanut butter cups and M&Ms!). We also attempted 2 fire-cooked meals - bacon & eggs in paper bag and chicken & veggies in foil pouches. The lack of cured wood and an impatient chef (*ahem*)  meant we were cooking bacon over flame instead of coals which went about as well as you'd expect (we broke down and cooked some bacon in a pan). I'm still left with 2 campfire meals that we didn't get to on this trip!

Before we left, Ainsley & I made fire starters out of egg cartons, dryer lint and paraffin wax. I also finally remembered to buy a hatchet so was able to split wood. Because of these important prep steps, the fires were easy to light and fantastic! Making fires and cooking over them is my favorite part of camping.

Unfortunately, my camera battery is dead so pictures will be forthcoming in a post of their own.

First pop up trip

Look! I can compose blog posts in the woods! Of course I can't *post* blog posts from the woods so by the time you see this, our first camping trip with the pop up will be completed but this is a nice way to spend a few minutes in the morning as the sun starts to creep up over the trees.

We are in Lotus, California at a campground by the south fork of the American river, not far from where the Gold Rush started. The campground is a haven for river rafters. Yesterday morning there were dozens of groups coming through the camp, donning life jackets and listening to safety tutorials before heading out onto the temporarily risen waters of the American river (Tim & the kids saw the river rise as they were out throwing rocks and in the afternoon when we went back out to go swimming, the rocks at low portions of the river were visible)

This has been a nice first run with the pop up. Two nights, not far enough from civilization to worry about forgetting things, learning a lot about how we'd like to manage the organization of the minimal storage area in the camper. For not having practiced backing up *at all*, we did a pretty good job getting the camper positioned, even with a pretty awkwardly positioned site. 

It is nearly 8am and we have a loooooong drive back to Portland today so I should get started with my day. Before I go, here's a shot of our camper fulfilling its destiny...

Final note: It is a little past midnight on Sunday night/Monday morning. We just drove 14 hours home from Lotus, CA and put a bit over 1,300 miles on the new car/pop-up combo this weekend. The trip was a success. More later. Sleep now.