It's that time of year again... when I am uber amped and crazy overwhelmed with planning a summer camping trip. To be fair, I've only been in this position, planning a cross-country road trip with 2 littles once, two summers ago. Last summer was busy with post-grad work so no camping road trips for us :(
This is the time when I have told enough people that I can't back down and yet I have more than fleeting moments wondering how crazy I really am... I am taking two kids (now 4 & 6 which is so much easier than when we did this at 2 & 4 years old!!!) tent camping across the country Alone?!? What crazy woman thinks anything about this plan is smart?!?
I would love to share my plan for this coming camping trip, which starts in less than 2 weeks, but first, let me go back and share what our trip looked like two summers ago...
I have a cousin who lives in Washington and for YEARS I've promised him I'd visit wherever he was; Texas, Florida, and now Washington. I decided that the kids and I would do it.
Wait. Airplane tickets are expensive! I can't fly with two kids to Washington. My single income was not going to support that even with the three months off private Montessori tuition.
Camping. I grew up camping. I loved camping as a young kid. I hated camping with my family as a teenager. I need to start exposing my children to the ever-changing relationship with family camping trips that I grew up with, why not start now!?!
Less than a week after telling my cousin that we were for sure going to visit him the upcoming summer, I got an email. 'There was a PLC training in either Washington or some other place, would anyone be interested in going to one of the two trainings this summer? Umm, yes!!! I called around until someone could tell me for certain that I would be reimbursed the cost of my travel up to the amount of a round trip flight if I drove there. That sealed the deal. I would Definitely be visiting my cousin in Washington and we'd camp our way there!
Yes, I said camping to Washington. From Minnesota. In a tent. With a 2 and a 4-year old. Alone.
I didn't think that set of information was very important until Everyone was so surprised to hear of the crazy plan I came up with. That crazy plan turned out to be the best thing we've ever done as a family. The trip started as a way to save a bunch of money as we traveled from Minnesota to Washington but turned into a much larger plan. The National Park Tour. We're visiting ALL National Parks before Pumpkin, my oldest, graduates from high school. He was 4 when The Tour started and is now 6.5. This plan didn't begin to evolve until our night at Devil's Tower, when I realized we'd already put 2 National Park stamps in our new National Park Passport. How would we get more stamps?!?
Back to the beginning again...
The weekend before we left for our trip to Washington, we camped with our neighbor and friend, along with her 2 teenager kids, at Whitewater State Park. The weekend was lovely and included trail exploration, fossil hunting, swimming, and rain.
I was in my new tent that I picked up for a 'great deal' on Amazon and I was thrilled to see how well it held up in a little Minnesota rain before heading out West. Thrilled? Yeah, more like ridiculously disappointed...
I listen to my dad. Most of the time... But I did for sure this time! I spread a tarp out in the floor of our tent instead of buying an overpriced footprint and when it started to rain, the kids and I said goodnight to our camping friends and crawled into our tent. We pulled out the Go Fish! and settled in. Less than 30 minutes into our tent time, my friend yelled that their tent was leaking! I yelled back to join us in ours, we were nice and dry! And then I thought to double check under our tarp... All 4 corners were leaking. And we were under full tree coverage! Into the cars the kids piled while us moms packed up camp. Home we drove and as soon as I got service, I called my dad, who always knows how to fix a situation. He was away from home but said to stay calm, we'll find a solid tent in time to leave on our big trip the following week.
He showed up Sunday night with a Big Agnes 4 tent from REI and I have never been so happy! Or dry! It held up that trip out West and every camping trip since. There's plenty of space to stand up, sprawl out, and bring our gear and camping 'essentials' into our tent with us. 'Essentials' include games, coloring books, writing utensils, books, stuffed animals, and the list keeps going as new 'required' items are discovered by my kids! I limit to one of each item per child. The camping sergeant in me would like to put my foot down at all non-essentials, but I'm a mom and I love my kids and I want them happy so I can relax and be happy myself. So we play 1/2 rounds of Go Fish while coloring for 45 seconds before someone takes a crayon that someone else wants and the world comes to an end, just like my relaxation time.
Since I'm in the middle of packing for our next leg of The National Park Tour trip beginning next week, I'll post this and add a couple days at a time of our first trip over the next week before we head out and I'll post along way of The Tour part II.
This is the time when I have told enough people that I can't back down and yet I have more than fleeting moments wondering how crazy I really am... I am taking two kids (now 4 & 6 which is so much easier than when we did this at 2 & 4 years old!!!) tent camping across the country Alone?!? What crazy woman thinks anything about this plan is smart?!?
I would love to share my plan for this coming camping trip, which starts in less than 2 weeks, but first, let me go back and share what our trip looked like two summers ago...
I have a cousin who lives in Washington and for YEARS I've promised him I'd visit wherever he was; Texas, Florida, and now Washington. I decided that the kids and I would do it.
Wait. Airplane tickets are expensive! I can't fly with two kids to Washington. My single income was not going to support that even with the three months off private Montessori tuition.
Less than a week after telling my cousin that we were for sure going to visit him the upcoming summer, I got an email. 'There was a PLC training in either Washington or some other place, would anyone be interested in going to one of the two trainings this summer? Umm, yes!!! I called around until someone could tell me for certain that I would be reimbursed the cost of my travel up to the amount of a round trip flight if I drove there. That sealed the deal. I would Definitely be visiting my cousin in Washington and we'd camp our way there!
Yes, I said camping to Washington. From Minnesota. In a tent. With a 2 and a 4-year old. Alone.
I didn't think that set of information was very important until Everyone was so surprised to hear of the crazy plan I came up with. That crazy plan turned out to be the best thing we've ever done as a family. The trip started as a way to save a bunch of money as we traveled from Minnesota to Washington but turned into a much larger plan. The National Park Tour. We're visiting ALL National Parks before Pumpkin, my oldest, graduates from high school. He was 4 when The Tour started and is now 6.5. This plan didn't begin to evolve until our night at Devil's Tower, when I realized we'd already put 2 National Park stamps in our new National Park Passport. How would we get more stamps?!?
Back to the beginning again...
The weekend before we left for our trip to Washington, we camped with our neighbor and friend, along with her 2 teenager kids, at Whitewater State Park. The weekend was lovely and included trail exploration, fossil hunting, swimming, and rain.
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| Pumpkin digging for Tadpoles |
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| Chuck Roast fossil hunting |
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| Good deal tent set up in the yard the day it came in the mail... |
He showed up Sunday night with a Big Agnes 4 tent from REI and I have never been so happy! Or dry! It held up that trip out West and every camping trip since. There's plenty of space to stand up, sprawl out, and bring our gear and camping 'essentials' into our tent with us. 'Essentials' include games, coloring books, writing utensils, books, stuffed animals, and the list keeps going as new 'required' items are discovered by my kids! I limit to one of each item per child. The camping sergeant in me would like to put my foot down at all non-essentials, but I'm a mom and I love my kids and I want them happy so I can relax and be happy myself. So we play 1/2 rounds of Go Fish while coloring for 45 seconds before someone takes a crayon that someone else wants and the world comes to an end, just like my relaxation time.
Since I'm in the middle of packing for our next leg of The National Park Tour trip beginning next week, I'll post this and add a couple days at a time of our first trip over the next week before we head out and I'll post along way of The Tour part II.
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| My home pole studio has become a camping gear wonderland! |
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