We survived our first camping trip with kids! Shout it from the rooftops! Sing joyfully in the streets! Wake up the entire campground at five am! We did it! We did it!
We all had a blast. The trick to any trip with kids is to set the
itinerary at simply this: survive. Anything else
is just icing on the cake. So we didn't go hiking. Who cares? We did
manage to play outside all day, go down the world's tallest playground slide, cook out hotdogs on a campfire, and eat
s'mores. And then eat s'mores. Oh man, did I ever eat a ton of
marshmallows. I don't know how many calories I burned in bootcamp on
Friday morning... but I ate more than that in burnt marshmallows on Friday
night. Worth it.
We didn't even attempt to go hiking. Brazos Bend is known for its gators and we didn't want to be known as bait. We did venture down to one of the big lakes where we saw a big alligator that nearly gave me a big heart attack as I was entirely convinced (for no reason other than motherhood) that Carolena was going to fall in and that I would have to jump in after her. *shudder* After that we stuck pretty close to our campsite and the giant terrifying playground. But hey, what's a twenty foot drop compared to staring down the gullet of a
six twenty foot gator?
As it turns out
Brazos Bend State Park's
playgrounds are as old as the hills. Did you see that photo?! Certainly they would not pass
Hunter's playground inspection. Huh, what? You don't know who Hunter is?
Guess what internet: I have a brother. BAM. Never mentioned him? Okay, I
probably have. But he isn't what one might call "on the grid." He has a
beard and a dog and designs parks for a living (although he does have
an iphone...) and thus doesn't end up on the old bloggeroni much.
Anyway, Hunter is a certified playground inspector among other varied
talents. Many mornings I look in the mirror and see Hunter sans beard
staring back at me and decide to put on another coat of eyeliner. I digress...
A few months ago we bought a tent big enough to accommodate camping with kids. That is to say, camping with our kids and the Williams kids who will surely accompany us on our adventures someday. Carolena and Nils would have spent hours running around inside of the tent had we let them. Nils was furious when we put him in the pack n play and wasn't showing signs of letting up so Chris ended up popping him in his carseat to do some backseat nighttime sightseeing of the park. Carolena had a blast right up until it was time to fall asleep at which point she announced she was ready to go home.
I told
Kelly Carolena that when we woke up in the morning we would go hiking and look for animals which gave her pause in her desire to go home. Then I asked her to tell me about her favorite episode of the Brady Bunch in which the Bradys go camping. That did the trick. She lulled herself off to sleep mumbling about who each of us should be and cooking fish for breakfast. That kid.
We were awakened by Sir Nils bright and early this morning. I shouldn't say bright. It was about two hours before sunrise. After breakfast and more time at the playground and (not) helping Daddy to take down camp we headed off for a hike... which was when I hit my breaking point of gnats flying into my nose and ears and we had to leave. There are only so many times that small bugs can go up my nose before I lose my mind. Anyone in the Rush family remember the hotel with the shuffleboard court and all the gnats?!
We came home dirty and exhausted and happy from all the fun. Duncan Family Camping Trip #1 can go down in the books as a huge success. Someday we'll take teenagers backpacking on a month long expedition on the Appalachian trail or college aged kids climbing up the face of El Capitan and we'll look back on the days that we had a pack n play in our tent and go, "Wow. That was tough! We were so crazy back then!"
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