Now that most of the major outdoor house projects are complete (**fingers crossed**), the husband and I have made a goal to spend some weekends going camping as a family. We really haven’t done this (with kids) but once, at a campground just a stone’s throw from our house in Iowa. It was amazing, and we stayed in a tent, but it wasn’t quite like true nitty-gritty camping. You can read about it here.
Well, the weather looked to be warm, and we didn’t have any plans, so we decided this weekend was going to be our inaugural Missouri camping adventure. We picked a state park about 45 minutes from the house, reserved a tent site, and set off on Friday, as soon as the husband got home from work and the boys got home from school. (We’ll skim over the half a day I spent dragging our camping stuff out of retirement, organizing, packing, planning, grocery shopping, and loading the truck. Whew – it was a lot of work!)
We arrive at the campsite and it is adorable. Aiden immediately climbs a tree.
Things that are going well so far:
- We found the campsite easily
- The weather is beautiful – warm without being hot, sunny, and a light breeze to keep away the bugs
- Unloading and setting up the tents went fairly quickly
Speaking of tents, remember the Taj Mahal?
It’s a little faded but still around and kicking since 2009. We have eeked every penny out of the $40 we spent on it almost thirteen years ago.
You might notice something about the Taj though – we didn’t put the rain canopy on. After much discussion and research via the various weather apps we have on our phones – which for the record showed ZERO chance of rain AT ANY POINT – we decided we wanted to enjoy the beautiful weather and look at the stars.
We are still having a great time, and the boys are having a blast – but things do start to get a little sideways here.
After getting camp set up and unloading some of the firewood from the truck, the campsite hosts come by to say hello and give us some pro tips about the racoons. (Basically, they’re smart enough to open your coolers so you better lock up any food inside a tent or vehicle if you want it to still be there in the morning). They also mention, at this point, the burn ban.
Chris and I look sadly at the wood stacked neatly in the campfire pit, and I mentally start doing an inventory of all the things I packed that required a fire to enjoy.
So, this is sad, but understandable, and thank goodness we have the camp stove and a new cylinder of propane. Fingers crossed it still works….
It works! Burgers and brats instead of cold sandwiches for dinner!
The boys meanwhile, are off in the woods, looking for Morels, observing wildlife, and spotting some Duchman’s breeches, which they claim “look like butterflies.”
So we enjoy a delicious meal and beautiful weather and I am just overjoyed to see the boys exploring the woods instead of staring at screens. The dog is super excited and therefore kind of a pain, but he’s young and this is the perfect mini-trip to get him acclimated to camping.
We manage to snap one family photo before dusk. Since there’s no sitting around a campfire, we take our electric lanterns inside the Taj Majal and play a fun game of Uno. However, upon entering our tent, we notice that the air mattress that we had fully inflated just two hours ago is now quite a bit… squishy. This does not bode well for its ability to hold air overnight, especially with two human bodies on it.
So we put the boys to bed and The Husband and I prepare to sleep on our partially inflated air mattress and hope for the best. We’ve also brought the dog in the tent, and he’s already amped up plus not used to sleeping someplace new (he always sleeps in his kennel, and I brought the travel-sized one which is now too small for him – whoops). So this is also a complete train wreck of him pacing back and forth while the two of us attempt to sleep on an air mattress that is even more rapidly losing air.
For the record, we went to bed at 10:30.
Neither of us were able to fall asleep. Around 2 or 3 am, I give up on the air mattress, and move my sleeping bag to the floor. But I have to make sure the Husband is on board, otherwise the deflated air mattress would fling him right off as soon as it lost the counterbalance of my weight.
So here we are, two adults in our 40’s who have absolutely no business sleeping on the hard ground with no padding, attempting to do just that.
Around 4 am (we’re both still awake, trying to fall asleep) something wet drips on my face. Another wet thing lands on my face.
“Is that… rain?” asks the husband.
YEP. IT’S RAIN.
If you remember, we elected NOT to put the rain canopy on.
Thankfully, the radar shows it to be short-lived, so after a few sprinkles it stops. The forecast doesn’t show any more possibility of rain. We attempt to fall back asleep.
I am *almost* there, just drifting off about 2 hours later (this is 5am) when something wet lands on my face again.
YES THAT’S RIGHT IT’S RAINING. AGAIN.
This rain however looks and feels to be more aggressive, so upon the Husband’s suggestion, I dig the rain canopy out of the back of the truck and we use it to cover us an keep us dry through the worst of it.
It lasts about 20 minutes, and it’s not a heavy rain, but it’s not a little sprinkle, either.
I think we both finally manage to snag 2 or 3 hours of sleep before we get up at 8. We both feel like we got ran over by a truck.
The boys, on the other hand, had a great night. They are excited for eggs and sausage for breakfast.
Although we have the campsite reserved for Saturday night as well, the weather is supposed to get extremely windy, with definite rain and possibly thunderstorms. Add to that the fact that The Husband and I don’t have a working air mattress… we’re headed home today.
But the boys are having an amazing time (and we are too, minus the hours of 11 pm – 8 am) and that is all we wanted out of the trip anyway. We finish breakfast, pack up the camp, then go explore a hiking trail that the boys found. It leads down to the lake, so we get to explore around that before we leave.
By 10:20 am we’re on the road and headed home. The Husband and I look at each other. “I can’t believe it’s still only Saturday morning,” I say to him, “It feels like a whole weekend went by!”
Despite the setbacks, it was overall a great time. And definitely a learning experience for the next time we go camping.
Links to my other camping posts, in case you missed them, are here:
Because Matches Aren’t Good Enough
