Camping Day 1

We had a wild camping extravaganza this weekend.

We were packed to the gills with every possible camping item we own, and I had to take the opportunity to take this picture before we pulled out of the driveway Saturday afternoon. It was too funny to pass up. Can you spot the kids?

This is what we had packed into our Durango:

-1 eight man tent

-1 10x10 canopy

-3 sleeping bags

-2 air mattresses

-3 blankets

-3 pillows

-1 play pen

-2 tarps

- 2 large coolers

- 1 storage container of food

-1 box of cooking utensils and supplies

-1 propane camp stove

-1 small charcoal grill

- 3 fishing poles and tackle box

- 2 lanterns

- 1 bag of toys

-2 rolls of firewood

- 1 ginormous sport bag of our clothes, shoes, etc...

- 1 diaper bag

-1 Dora the Explorer backpack

-4 coats

-3 chairs

-1 small folding camp table

Riley did an excellent job of packing it all in and we were afraid if we all breathed at the same time the doors would burst open. It took us a little over an hour to reach Teancum Timbers and it was an enjoyable, quiet drive. It was a gorgeous day, and we were pleasantly surprised to find upon our arrival that we were the only people camping there. (I guess we were the only heathens who were camping there on a Saturday night.) We drove around for a little while to find the perfect camp spot, and had to fore go our number one pick because of ants. Not just a few ants, but a mountain of them. So we ended up picking Camp 17 which proved ideal until we discovered there were numerous thorny branches on the ground from one of the trees, but we decided to stay there anyways and Riley was the only one who kept encountering them for some reason. (little did we know those would come back to haunt us)

It didn't take too long for us to unpack our gear and start setting things up. Our tent is quite roomy and we fit a queen air mattress, a twin air mattress and Morgan's playpen inside, along with enough room for our bags and such; pretty comfortable. The kids had fun playing in the tent for a while, until we discovered that a thorn had pierced the bottom of the tent and punctured the queen mattress. I forgot to mention that it is lucky we stayed close to the bathroom area so that Riley could make a couple of trips back and forth to plug in the electric air pump to air up the mattresses. We patched the hole, aired it up some more and it held up nicely. After we had everything unpacked and situated, we relaxed for a bit and enjoyed the beautiful day. I brought Kendle some water color paints and she enjoyed that, and Morgan enjoyed the fresh air from the comfort of his play pen. Thank goodness we brought that thing, it was seriously a life saver amidst the dirt, rocks, branches, bark, and bugs.

Here's what our camp spot looked like:

For dinner we roasted hot dogs, and then made some S'mores before bedtime. We were all pretty tuckered out so we decided to turn in fairly early. The plan was to wake up the next morning and drive a little ways for some fishing. Unbelievably, we were all in bed and covered up by 8:45 or so. The Morgster didn't think it was too cool that he was sleeping in a play pen, while everyone else lounged on comfy air mattresses and he put up quite a fight. We finally let him out to roam around the tent for a bit and he finally started to get a little tired out and lay back down in his bed. Kendle fell asleep pretty quick and man that girl can sleep hard when she passes out like that. I just was starting to doze off when it started to rain. At first it was just a light pleasant little patter. Riley and I noted that we luckily had the rain covering on top of the tent. About an hour later the rain was pouring down and hammering the top of the tent so hard it made it impossible to sleep. I reached for my cell phone to see the time, thinking it must be almost morning. Uh, no such luck. A blurry 2:30 am stared back at me. An hour later Riley and I were still wide awake and I was silently praying that we would not be flooded and float away in our tent. The rain would just not let up and kept coming down harder and harder. I finally fell asleep somewhere around 4:30 and was having a wonderful dream about camping when Morgan's crying jolted me awake. The first thing I noticed was that the rain had let up a bit. It should stop soon I remember thinking. Wrong. The storm continued and finally around 6:00 we decided to get up and peek outside and make a run for the bathrooms. By this time it was just a slight drizzle, but everything outside was soaking wet and our chairs had puddles in them.

Hmmm, what to do. We couldn't make a fire, sit in our chairs, or cook breakfast. So I went and grabbed the umbrella out of the car, we made a quick run to the bathrooms and then we hopped back into the car in our pajamas and decided to make a drive back to Dayton to see what we could find out about the weather and find out if we could get some cell phone service.

Tomorrow I'll write more about our rain soaked day 2 of camping.