Camping in the rain

Our Camping Week

After the last few months working many long hours at work, doing home repairs, and trying to work odd jobs here and there to make some extra cash, it was time for the family camping trip. It was the camping trip we had been talking about for the last year. My wife was especially excited for it. With our red four door car packed till the doors nearly popped off the hinges we where off to the lake.

For us camping is the one time we don’t have to answer phones, turn on the TV or check our email. Not that we have to do any of those things but we feel obligated to. Almost as if we will loose a friend, miss some emergency or always wonder for the rest of our life “Who was it that called and didn’t leave a message?”. Either way it is a time to get away from everything and spend time as a family. As our little girl grows this family time seems more and more important to us.

I don’t know why but it always seems to rain when we go camping. The days where warm but cloudy and the nights showered down a flood of water on our little tent. Somehow we managed through the damp nights and enjoyed our lazy days. Even Joy (our 3 month old daughter) was full of smiles.

Going for walks during the day, talking at night, burning wieners and trying to keep things dry all adds to the memories we create as a family. The challenges that arise are what make for good story telling and memories we will have in the future with our children. Somehow my wife and I will have more than our share.

Some people are accident prone, we on the other hand are prone to ending up in some odd adventure due to forgetting something or by taking the wrong turn. Most of our family must think we are a little crazy and sometimes wounder how our kids will turn out. In fact even I wounder how they will turn out especially if they take after me.

In the end our camping trip turned out good. We thought we were returning well rested and refreshed. We thought that only until we packed up camp, drove home, then unpacked. We soon realized we were nearly as tired as when we left. We went to our own cozy queen size bed and fell asleep even before the feathers in our duvet could settle into place.

That was our week of vacation. There is not a whole lot more to say about camping as I am sure every other dad out there has been camping with their children. If you haven’t been camping with your child then you really need to question your fatherhood. I don’t think any childhood is complete with out the memory of at least one camping trip or at least one camping trip in the rain.

Camping Photos

This trip one of my goals was to try to capture the feeling of camping with pictures. So here are eighteen pictures of camping that stood out to me. Pictures of the things that separate our everyday routine of being busy and working from the days of the lazy, slow paced days that let you reflect on life. Photos of the things that we are glad we don’t have to do every day but take vacation from work so we can do them (like carry water and cook over a fire).

Photo 1:
The annoying squirrel who ripped open the Dill Pickle Spitz (sunflower seeds) when we were out at the beach.

Photo 2:
The lantern that ran out of gas. Forcing us to put down our books and stare into the campfire.

Photo 3:
Just one of a million mossy logs but I just love moss. (but only in the campground)

Photo 4:
Our camp site number and bright red car that stood out in the green surroundings. (Just in case you can rewind time and come visit us.)

Photo 5:
My wife’s sandals.

Photo 6:
Another mossy tree. Much like all the others.

Photo 7:
A mushroom that looked really slimy and yellow on top. It was gone then next day. I suppose some furry little creator ate it. (I hope it was the squirrel that ate our Dill Pickle Spitz and I hope he got sick!)

Photo 8:
Tent pegs that would not go into the rocky ground and kept getting bent.

Photo 9:
Freezing cold water that was nice during the warm days.

Photo 10:
Axe and Firewood. Not sure why we had to pay for it when all the trees were dead from the pine beetle anyways but we paid for it anyways.

Photo 11:
Me and my girl Joy. My favorite person to go camping with other than my wife. She spent most of her time staring up into the trees.

Photo 12:
Tree fungus. I was just glad it was not foot fungus as it was only several feet from our tent.

Photo 13:
Some crazy plant that grows only one bright blue berry. Why just one berry I will never know. There were hundreds of them everywhere.

Photo 14:
My wife reading and reading and reading and… One of our favorite camping events.

Photo 15:
Of course that last photo is of the hot coals as the night ends. As the fire slowly dies out and the bright orange coals grow dimmer we all huddled into our cozy tent pulling all the blankets we can find over our bodies.

In Closing

Well that is it for my photos and a few of my favorite memories. I hope that my photos will maybe spark some memory you have of camping with your children or maybe a favorite camping trip you have taken with your family. The times in life where you’re happy to carry water every morning, use a outhouse when it is so dark you can’t see what your sitting on, cook over a fire, and eat hot dogs or burnt marsh mellows till you feel sick. If you have never experienced any of this because your too busy watching TV then it is about time you pack up your tent and find out what you have been missing out on.

Remember there is no such thing as a bad camping day because the worst rainy day that you have will be the day that you will remember and talk about the rest of your life! This is what memories are made of, these are the stories you will talk about again and again when you sit around the dinner table. Create time to build these memories with your children.