First family camping trip

First, you need to understand that up until this point my motto was “If you can feel your toes, you’re not camping.” I was accustomed to backpacking, and I couldn’t afford super-duper ultra light gear so I learned to travel light by ruthlessly minimizing the unnecessary/luxury items carried. I usually went with only one other person, 3 max. and I only ever had to worry about gear for one person: me.

This past weekend, our family camped overnight at the local state park for the first time. It was my wife and I along with our five (5) sons, ranging in age from 1 to 8 yrs. I learned a lot. I’m writing this mostly as notes to myself for next time. Feel free to ignore/criticize/critique.

Food & cooking:

There’s been very little rain here lately, so I called the park office the day before to see if there were any fire restrictions and they said no. Well, when we got there the next day they had just decided – no campfires. Dang, I had some nice flounder fillets already wrapped up in foil and ready to go into the coals for supper.

I had a small propane stove and on a whim I had brought along a sterno “stove” someone gave me and a couple of cans of leftover sterno, so we were ok for cooking. But it’s not the same. I was kicking myself for not buying the $15 Swedish cook set w/ Trangia stove that I saw at an army navy store the week before.

I used the sterno a lot to heat water in the background while I was doing other things and it worked better than I expected. It actually got a full 6-cup “coffee pot” of water to a rolling boil.

I fried the fish and make Idaho instant potatoes in a freezer bag for supper. Four cheese – mmmmm.

Freezer bag omelets for breakfast were a big success (first try), although the egg did seem to stick to the bag more that it’s supposed to. I tried adding butter when I did it again at home, and the one I added the most butter to didn’t stick, so I’m thinking that coating the bag with some melted butter or even cooking spray first may be the way to go. It goes without saying that there was also plenty of spam.

Hot dogs for lunch, boiled instead of roasted on sticks - booooo.

For drinks, hot chocolate and individual juice packets. I asked my wife to grind some beans very coarse to bring with us for cowboy coffee, and she did – half of the beans where still whole. I used about 4 cups worth of beans to make 2 cups of coffee. It took a long time simmering to get it strong enough, but at least I didn’t get any grounds in my teeth.

Before we left hime, I filled an Aquatainer to only 5 gallons for easy transport. We used it for all our water with the exception of washing after using the bathroom. We almost used it all up, so I figure a full 7 gallons per 24 hours would be about right in an emergency.

Shelter:

We were given a basic 6-man tend years ago, a monstrosity that I would never have considered buying myself. Its sort of a “cabin” type but it tapers toward the top. No rain fly, so if it poured you’d have to zip all the windows completely closed. If was just the right size for all of us, including the baby in a small portable crib/playpen. We slept on a motley assortment of air mattresses and foam pads.

It was about 60 degrees and extremely humid at night. I kept the tops of the windows open for ventilation but all the body heat kept it a comfortable temperature inside. I’m resigned to the fact that condensation is a fact of life in tents, but I was actually quite surprised that we were not swimming by morning.

People:

Everyone was nice except for one guy at the site across the path from us who was apparently some combination of deaf/mentally handicapped/drunk/jerk who TALKED LOUDLY ALL NIGHT. I’m not even really sure if he was talking TO anyone. Just when I would get pissed enough to get up and go over there, he would quiet down and I’d fall asleep. Next thing you know he’d start up again. Finally at 3:00am he started playing a radio and that was the last straw.

I grabbed my 3-cell Maglite, not that it’s a great light, but it makes really good big heavy metal stick, and stormed over there. I turned it on, found his face, and said “Its 3 o’clock in the morning – turn the radio off and quiet down.” Then I turned the light off so as not to provide an easy target. Nothing happened for a minute and then I heard some mumbling “Was he talking to us? I don’t know, that light was shining right at us, Preccccious…” so I turned the light back on and repeated myself. Eventually he got up and turned it off. I think he woke me up once or twice more. Next time I’ll be sure to have the ranger’s phone number handy.

Lights:

Already mentioned the Maglite. My wife tried my Petzle Tikka headlamp and then refused to give it back. We had a package of those long, skinny chemlights that can be make into bracelets, etc. for the kids and they made good nightlights for the tent. I even used one to check on the baby without waking him up. I had been given a tiny propane lantern many years ago but never used it much. I never had much luck keeping the mantle intact. Well, I pulled it out of the box and the mantle was still intact after a decade of storage! It ran all evening until we turned in, which was good because I didn’t have any spare mantles.

Well, that’s all I can think of at the moment