Well friends, we did it — Lotte’s first camping trip! And we survived! (Mostly.)
This weekend we packed up our Forester (which seems to be getting smaller and smaller on us, theses days!) and joined my cousin and her family and some of their friends out near Boreas Pass Road at Selkirk Campground for some straight-up tent camping with our 10-month-old.
I can hear you now saying we’re crazy, and maybe a small part of us is, but we just had to give it a try! We settled on one night — Saturday — to ease ourselves into it, and while Chris gave the overall status of the trip a 60% grade (more on why later), I’d say it was more like a 75%. Don’t get me wrong — the daytime was amazing, an A+! The night, however … well that was another story.
Here’s a couple things I learned from camping for the first time with my 10-month-old:
- One night is not enough for everything you have to do to get prepped for camping. With all the food and gear and baby gadgets we had to get together, I felt like we should be leaving for a month, not 24 hours. Still, I think having just the one night ended up working out okay since, as I mentioned above, things didn’t go so well at night. However, if/when we camp again, I think we’ll shoot for at least a 2-night minimum.
- Prepare for all contingencies. Anyone who has gone camping will already know this, but when you have a baby with you, put that on your list three times. I had checked the weather before we left and saw it was meant to dip down to the lower 40s at night, so we were ready, but it actually ended up dipping to the lower 30s (?!?!?! That’s mountain life for ya!), so I was extra happy we were prepared.
- Don’t think you’ll sleep. At all. Get in all the rest and relaxation in the days leading up to your camping trip that you can, because camping with your baby will not be relaxing. As I mentioned already, our night wasn’t so great. Lotte was up about every two hours, and while she mostly went back down relatively easily, still, she was up crying every. two. hours. So no sleep was had by anyone (including the family in the tent closest to us … sorrrryyyyy!). I don’t think she was cold, necessarily, since her nighttime attire included a long-sleeved onesie, socks, fleece pajamas, her winter sleep sack, socks on her hands, her winter hat and a fleece blanket (plus eventually we brought her over to our mattress to sleep with us, so she had our blanket on top of her, too). I think it was just the overall weirdness of being outside and in a tent that she just couldn’t get used to. Whatever it was, she wasn’t having it!
- Be down for anything. For as frustrating as our night was, the day was gorgeous and filled with fun. We hiked and watched the sunset and made smores and they had hammocks and there was a beautiful stream, so it was very fun. The one thing I hadn’t really thought about, though, was that at this crawling age, we couldn’t really put Lotte down anywhere (dirt, and anything else, goes right in the mouth these days), which meant Chris or myself was holding her all day long. Again this was fine, especially for one night, but it definitely wasn’t something we thought of ahead of time.
Anyway, after unpacking when we arrived, here’s what we actually got to see and do. It was pretty spectacular …
^^ I am never not taking glorious mountain photos from the car window when we drive places around here!
^^ My cousin’s daughter is one year almost to the day older than Lotte, and they are just the cutest together!
^^ The relaxin’ in a camp chair in the sun part of camping? Lotte had that part nailed 😉
^^ Look at these glorious views! I would definitely recommend this area for camping, just be sure to bring your rugged, all-terrain vehicle because some of the roads were quite bumpy to navigate.
^^ There’s my man, settin’ us up for the night. We actually don’t have any camping gear ourselves besides one cooler … is that crazy? We borrowed this stuff from our camping-pro friends, though, and it was pretty amazing.
^^ This. Little. Face. All dirty and scratched up 😉
^^ Dubious tent face :/ A sign of things to come!
^^ These two <3
^^ When Lotte wouldn’t sleep, we went for a walk with her, which at least meant we were able to catch this glorious sunset … so thanks for that, Lotte!
^^ We woke up to 34 degree temps, and I needed to breastfeed Lotte, which I was not about to do in that frigid weather. So we started up the car, put the heat on and Lotte and I hung out there for a little bit in the wee hours of the morning. Oh, parenthood 😉
^^ Maxin’ and relaxin’ while we all pack up.
^^ My cousin with Lotte. We were so thankful for the invite and had so much fun tagging along the trip … thanks Court!
^^ We made a few pitstops on the way home to take in the views, too.
And that was our camping in a nutshell! Super gorgeous, very fun and entirely exhausting 😉 And would I do it all over again? You bet I would!
I hope everyone has a fun Fourth of July plans. We’ll be heading out of town to the Twin Lakes area to check it out. Until next time, bis bald!