CAMPING

The Wevodaus went camping this weekend. While Ed took the boys camping over the summer courtesy of Aunt Marge and Uncle Larry’s RV – that was really living in the lap of luxury. We scaled it down a bit this weekend. I wouldn’t call it extreme roughing it, but it was a bit more back to nature than their summer adventures (after all Ed’s trusty queen size air mattress had a leak and so we really did sleep on the ground while the boys were at least on top of the bed roll foam).
We visited Dinosaur Valley State Park, about 1 ½ hours from our home. We didn’t explore everything, but we did see a set of Dinosaur foot prints in a creek bed! We rode bikes around the camp sites, when fishing in the creek – Aidan got some nibble using his fake grub worm, but most of the fish were scared away by the large rocks being thrown into the creek by the other kiddos that weren’t fishing. We ate brauts and pork chops (although the boys didn’t – they stuck with plain bread) for dinner and sausage and fried potatoes for breakfast. We made smores and took a ghostly flashlight walk in the evening.
Lessons learned for our next camp out:
1) Bring firewood – especially if it is going to be 40 degrees at night
2) Bring a trash bag – we create a lot of trash
3) Don’t use a whole stick of butter and 2 “glugs” of oil when trying to fry potatoes
4) Put the rain flap over the tent – whether or not it is forecasted to rain
5) Bring Christmas lights- they just make it all look festive
6) At least consider bringing a camera (to capture rare moments when your boys are swinging on swings and holding each other’s hands – sorry no picture)

Things we did well and will do again:
1) Pop popcorn in a skillet
2) Always bring bikes – great entertainment around the camp site while the adults are getting things ready
3) Bring extra shoes and clothes – you never know when someone will fall in the creek
4) Bring good food and lots of it
5) Bring extra flashlights and extra batteries – there’s always one that doesn’t work or someone who doesn’t have one