Well when we got back there the firewood was missing. Pere said he would go over to our closest neighbors and asked if they had seen anyone take our wood. A few minute later Pere came back carrying our wood. Hmph!
Then we set up camp. We have a 3 person 3 season tent, originally we thought Pere would sleep outside this time since Tante was with us but the bugs were legion so we figured out a way for us all to sleep in the tent with Z sleep down at our feet (we are all pretty short.)
Then we drove to a nearby ice cream place to treat ourselves for burning off so many calories. *wink*
When we came back to the camp we took Z to the playground. Where does she get her energy?
We had a couple house till sunset and Tante wanted to know what we were going to do . I told her we would make our own fun. And we did.
First will CavePere started a large fire Z and I had an Entomology class. We lied down on a blanket with our face really close to grass and saw the hundreds of ants, aphids, beetles, and other insects that live in 6 inch by 6 inch square of nature. I told Z that the insects have a larger world than we do because they are so small. We talked about scale and imagined that if we were insects how big blades of grass, flowers and shoes would be to us. Z caught a lot of bugs on the blanket and looked at them with her magnifying glass. Then she caught a huge pill bug and then another even huger black beetle that she made our camp pet. That girl really likes to look at bugs.
After dinner - a pot of carrot and onion couscous with pre-cooked chicken- we started a game of throwing rocks at my almost empty and flat bottle of soda. After Tante and I got tired of this and wandered off Pere and Z kept up at it and next thing I knew Z had gotten very accurate. So not only was this her first camping trip but it was also the day she really learned how to throw. :)
As the sun started to set we got into a very silly and hilarious game of charades. That was one of the best parts of the trip. I was really happy that not only did we have no internet or games or even books that we still managed to have a very fun time - like I had said, we made our own fun.
The sun set after eight and we put Z down to sleep in the tent with a flashlight and a book. (I am not sure if she can fall asleep without reading something.) She might have been a little scared. She called out to us once when we were all sitting in the dark watching the embers in the fire die out. She said we were being too quiet.
Oh wait! I forgot to talk about the potty situation. When we were hiking on the trail Z had to go "pee-pee" so I took her off the trail and found her a good spot by a tree and showed her how to go in the woods. She did it the right way but afterwards she said "I don't think I want to do that again."
We had a port-o-potty by our campsite but I couldn't really bring myself to use it. Z used it once and said she felt disgusting just being in there. Tante was right when she said it was really quite clean but still... So when I really had to go I actually drove the car to the nature center and went there or once it was dark I went in the bushes, I felt that was cleaner that being in the port-o-potty.
Around 10:00 Pere, Tante and I tried to go to sleep. It didn't really work out that well. I was really hot and feeling bad about the amount of tossing and turning I wanted to do since we were all cramped into a 3 person tent. Then around midnight, a car full of men and boys (from the sound of their voices) showed up and started louding pitching their tent in the site next to ours. Very loudly and apparently they were doing a bad job of it because it took them a long time and lots of arguing about it. I don't know where they came from because the campsite gates were locked at 10:00.
It was pretty annoying and made me long for a more secluded spot where the only thing to bother us would be the bears and lions. Of course Z slept through the whole thing.
She also slept through them getting up at 4:00 in the morning and talking louding about fishing and then getting into their car and driving off and then driving back and complaining about how the gate was still locked and how they had to wait till seven in the morning to leave.
I couldn't fall back to sleep after that. In about an hour Tante woke up. We only had two more hours till we could leave. around six Pere got up and we all consulted and found that none of us had slept more than about four hours that night. Except Z that is, at 6:30 I had to go into the tent and wake her up so we could break camp.
Other than the loud neighbors it was a great camping trip. I can't wait to do it again.
My next post will be about how we left the camp to spend Father's Day with Grandpere and Grandmere at Legoland.
2 comments:
The "pee-pee" story was very funny ! Heehee
as you remember from our hike in Temescal Canyon, J stops for all interesting bugs....now B (just starting to pick up speed walking) stops for ants. He will just stop and stare at the trail on the sidewalk as long as we let him. Our evening walk around the block really takes forever...but even Binx the cat comes with us every time. I know my bug guys would adore a camping trip. Just have to get my husband and I (both definitely more hotel types) over it and just do it. I think it will take until next year to work on the man.
Post a Comment