It took us just under 2 hours to get there, and our first stop was at the local Walmart. (Next time, we will shop and get everything we need BEFORE we hit the road. I forgot to mention that it was hot outside, VERY, VERY hot!
The more we walked around the store, the more we realized we still needed a lot of stuff! $170 (and 3 battery operated fans) later, we were back on our way. Because it was so hot, we decided to eat lunch somewhere with air conditioning. It was already after 1:00 by this time. We decided to stop at Pizza Hut! Yum! I don't think there are any Pizza Huts in our area anymore, and I have such happy memories of personal pan pizzas and Book It! as a kid, so I was a happy camper. (Pun intended.) Ben seemed to be happy too, eating his fries…
We kissed the air conditioning goodbye before heading to our camp site. I'm pretty sure that by this point, it was at least 85 degrees with 94% humidity. Andy put up the tent while I lathered the boys with sunscreen and bug spray.
Ben was pretty excited about the tent!
What you can't see in these pictures is that it was approximately 150 degrees in the tent, with the sun beating in on one side. So sweaty, yet so cute. I could kiss that little face all day.
We hung out at our campsite for awhile and after we realized naps were not going to happen, we decided to go on a hike.
Josh's chair has truly been a lifesaver. It probably cost more than our other 3 camp chairs combined, but you can't put a price on convenience! I think Josh agrees.
Or he is at least humoring me.
That Kelty carrier that Ben is in almost didn't make the cut based on it's giant size, but thankfully we had it because we thought we were going on a 0.5 mile hike to see a waterfall but it actually turned out to be a 3 mile loop. Did I mention it was hot? And that I was wearing flip flops? Both boys somehow fell asleep in the sweaty conditions. Poor Ben was practically getting whiplash while we hiked.
It was so stinking hot and dry that the waterfall wasn't as impressive as it was in the pictures we had googled earlier in the week, but it was still pretty and much cooler by the water!
By some miracle, we climbed up this random hill at the EXACT time we needed to and we ended up at our campsite. Woohoo! It felt like it was all uphill, but I must say it did feel good to have a pretty intense workout! We relaxed at the campsite for a bit before we decided to go get some firewood to make a fire before dinner. Andy offered to go alone, but I quickly reminded him that a car ride meant AIR CONDITIONING and he was crazy to think that I wasn't going to get in on that!
Ben is really in the "I don't like you taking pictures of me all the time" phase. He's not living up to his "happy camper" shirt!
We passed the beach on our way to get firewood, so we decided to stop and check it out. In hindsight, we should have gone to the beach MUCH earlier because I think it was like 7:00 at this point. Ben had never been in a lake before and he LOVED it.
Josh was a fan too! We all were. And because it was later in the day, it wasn't very crowded. I'm still not sure why we decided to go hiking over swimming when it was a million degrees, but we added that to our list of "things we learned about camping with kiddos" list.
Look at that brave boy!
Ben did not want to leave which resulted in a bit of a meltdown as we were leaving, and Josh had a dirty diaper and of course all of our supplies were back at the tent. With 2 crabby boys, we decided to just head back to the campsite sans firewood. Our dinner plans went from chicken on the grill to mac and cheese over the fire to leftover lunch pizza over the course of the day. It was still light out when we got back to the campsite, and I got a sinking feeling that bedtime was going to be a task. I looked over at our picnic table and noticed that our beautiful Pizza Hut box was on it's side. Hmm, I thought to myself, that's weird. I opened the box and realized it was EMPTY! I look up and see a trail of food on the ground as well as our bag of tortilla chips. Andy picks up the bag and says, "aww man, I really wanted chips and salsa" and he tried to pretend there wasn't a giant hole in the bag. CAN'T FOOL ME, BUDDY. We felt a bit defeated, but realized that it was our mistake for leaving our stuff out. Another lesson for the list. On to bedtime. I can't remember exactly why I left the tent, but I went to go get something and I am faced with a GINORMOUS RACCOON EATING MY PIZZA BEHIND THE TENT. I freaked out so Andy came out to try and scare it away. It was not scared. Not even close to being scared. Mind you, it was still totally light outside at this point. One of our camp neighbors walked by and said, "I tried to scare him away when he was on your picnic table, but he wouldn't budge." By this time, all of our neighbors were checking out our little pet and I was NOT amused. Andy kept telling the boys to stay in the tent and then he went and got his handy dandy knife. I'm not sure what he was going to do with that thing, (slay the coon??) but all I could think of was that book from like 5th grade "Where The Red Fern Grows" where the raccoons attack people. The beast finally wandered away and we were left to try and relax again. I was suddenly wanting a fire to scare the raccoon away. As if getting the boys to sleep wasn't hard enough before this unwelcomed guest stopped by, it was essentially impossible at this point. None of our tricks to get them to sleep were working at all. Ben was not impressed that we forgot to bring a bedtime book and he had no interest in listening to a made up story. We tried and tried and tried to get them down, but it just wasn't happening. It was still sweaty hot, light, and loud. We debated back and forth as to whether or not we should call it quits on the whole tent deal. I had posted a picture on Facebook and one of Andy's cousin's messaged us and offered us to stay at their house because they weren't too far away. It was so, so, so tempting. It was slowly getting darker, and we ultimately decided that a good night of sleep was just not going to happen. Sadly, we packed up everything in the dark and headed home. It was after 10:00PM and (finally) dark by the time we crammed everything in to the car. Both of the boys were still awake at this time. I turned the flashlight on on my phone and scanned the site before we drove away, and what do you know, the raccoon was back WITH FRIENDS!!! They were snacking right outside where our tent had been and RIGHT near where Ben would have been sleeping! I could not get in the car fast enough. I felt a little bit like quitters and looking back, we probably could have toughed it out, but truth be told, I was never going to sleep comfortably with raccoons lurking near by and I know that Josh would not have slept through the night anyway. Ben was sleeping before we even got out of the park. Josh screamed for about 45 minutes on the way home. We stopped to make sure there wasn't something wrong with him, and as soon as I took him out of his chair, he was just fine. We finally arrived home slightly after midnight. My bed never felt so good! While I'm pretty sure Andy envisioned us relaxing around the fire with a cold beverage in hand, in reality we should have realized that that was not going to happen.
Although I am 100% positive that the money we spent on all of this camping stuff could have afforded us the nicest hotel around, as Andy said, "we can use all of this camping stuff again!" My vote is that the next camping trip is in our backyard….and not on the hottest day of the year…when it stays light until 9:30…without electricity….and so on. :) We still got to do some of the typical camping things, we just missed the main event of actually camping. At least it didn't rain!
