Camping

While I was at my GIS conference in California, James was busy scouring Craigslist for a pop-up camper. After our Maine vacation, we decided to look around for a used camper that would serve as our home away from home for many years of family vacations. Obviously, it didn't take him long to find one. Last weekend we took her out for her maiden voyage. It was also Cece's first time camping (ok, second if you count this night). We decided to stay relatively close to home just in case we needed to bail on the plan in the middle of the night. I was a little nervous about how Cece would do, in particular, how she'd sleep.

We picked Black Rock State Park campground which is about an hour from home. Neither of us had been there before but we got lucky and picked one of the better sites at the park. We arrived in the evening on Friday and immediately set up "camp."

The camper is surprisingly big. It folds out to include two large beds (a king and a full) and has two other beds that can be made out of the couch seating area and the dining area so in total it can comfortably sleep 6-8 people. It also has a fridge, a sink and an outdoor grill as well as decent amount of storage. We set up Cece's pack n' play where the table usually goes and despite a bit of a rough patch in the middle of our first night, she did great. By night two she was sleeping through the night (more or less). She did wake up when a skunk wandered through our campsite and scratched at our door, but went right back to sleep after that.

If you follow us on Instagram, you know that we did a "dry-run" the weekend before in our driveway. After going down easy because she was overtired, Cece woke up in the middle of the night screaming. Not once but three times. Eventually I was so tired I just took her out of the pack and play and let her sleep between us in the big king bed. After that experience, I wasn't sure how this would go. Afterall, there were other campers on both sides of us. But, I think in general, the fact that we weren't in our driveway anymore and the fact that Cece stayed up both night until 9 pm (way past her bedtime) played in our favor. Plus, she loved exploring the campground (read we had to chase her around for two days) and was pretty much exhausted once her head hit the pillow. She had a really, really good time. We all did.

 

And of course, no camping trip would be complete without s'mores.

 

By the second morning, we were pros. Well, almost. 

And sadly, before we knew it, it was time to pack up and head home again.

Our happy little camper on the first of many family camping trips!