Summer Camping Trip

Early last summer I saw the camping equipment come out at the store that I work at. It reminded me of when I was a kid.

My grandparents lived in a campground every summer. My aunt, uncle, and cousins would go too. Even my parents. My mom went into labor with my sister while we were there once. It was good memories. I missed the experience of going.

So I got the most amazing idea. I would take my youngest daughter and my nephew camping at the beginning of August. Before school started back up.

Armed with my credit card and paychecks I spent the summer getting everything I would need for the trip. Then I called a campground I knew about in Indiana. I made the reservation for the first Friday and Saturday night in August. The name of the campground is Playmor in Breman Indiana.

But it seems closer to Nappanee, Indiana. Nappanee is my home town when I was a kid I still have family there that I still go see.

I was all excited about this trip. The kids weren’t though. I mean, there is no Xbox. No computers. I did say that they could bring their phones and tablets.

The time finely came for the trip. My nephew refused to go. He wanted to stay at grandpas in Nappanee. So I took my niece, who lives with my father and left my nephew. That’s OK. It turned into a girl’s weekend.

When I picked up my niece, my dad came along to help me pitch the tent. It was a large 8 person tent. Yes, I had planned on only being 3 of us but also wanted the room to put an air mattress in for each of us to sleep on. It even had enough room for all the camping supplies.

As we started the day we realized we forgot a few things and went back into Nappanee for them. See I never had to worry about any of this planning and packing like this before. This is the first camping trip since I was a kid. Back then my family was always with me and did all that.

We bought our campfire wood from the camp store. We weren’t allowed to bring in wood from Michigan. I am not sure why, but that’s OK.

When everything was set up the girls and I went exploring. We were in search of the bathroom. This way if we needed to go in the middle of the night we would know how to get there. Let’s say that the girls were a little grossed out over the state of the bathroom. I, was used to this. Especially with my previous camping experience.

My daughter and I went to girl scout camp for the last two years. We had porta-potties there that pita didn’t have an Issue with like here.

Another thing we learned at girl scout camp was how to make one-pot spaghetti and garlic bread. So this is what we had this first night.

Pita (my daughter) wanted to be the one to fix our campfire. We had a hard time all weekend trying to keep the fire lit for cooking. At the end of the trip, I was talking to my dad about it. He suggested that next time soak the wood with lighter fluid. Then let it set a little bit. This will help keep the fire going.

That evening before we went to bed we had a major problem. Somehow the girls threw my car keys onto the front passenger seat. Then the doors got locked. Brilliant. Now we were locked out of my car. I had to call my dad. It was too late to come out right then.

So early the next morning he came out to our campsite and helped me to get into the car again. This was the first time in my entire life that my keys got locked in the car. I was so frustrated over the incident. But hay, lessons learned, right?

We spent the morning getting cleaned up and playing with our phones. Yeah, I know, it was a camping trip. Back to nature and all that. But these girls have lived their lives in the information and electronic device age. I made a deal with them.

They can bring their phone if they came camping with me. I put my fit down against laptops. This was why my nephew wouldn’t come. So I allowed them some time on their phones and small tablets. The camp has free wifi.

A little after lunch we went swimming at the pool for a couple of hours. We had lots of fun doing that.it was what we all wanted to do most of all during the weekend. Afterward, we got cleaned up and rested a while before dinner.

When dinner time arrived I taught them what pudgy pies were. This presented a problem with my daughter. You see, she won’t eat pie, or anything resembling a pie. I had to explain it was just the name of a grilled sandwich. Kind of like grilled cheese.

The girls created a pizza type and ate it after they were taught how to make them. I had ham and cheese with red onions. We added chips and dip to go with them. We all were having so much fun making them and eating them.

Other than the car key occurrence the only other problem we had was we were cold at night while we slept. I learned we need to bring extra blankets next time. This way we will stay warm. The sleeping bags were not warm enough.

We got up early on Sunday morning and began to take down the tent. It was easier to take it down than it was putting it up. Putting it up took 2 adults to do. But taking it down I was able to do with the girls. We began to repack the car with all the supplies and gathered up all the trash. I explained to the girls that we clean up all trash to take to the dumpster on the way out. We are to leave the place as we found it when we came. I was very happy to see that the girls actually had a good time. My plan is to take them again every year. I thank we would all like that.

If you have never been camping before I would highly recommend it. The only thing we didn’t do that I wanted was to fish in the pond while we were there. but hay there is always the next trip.

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