Vacation: More Around the Camp

For some reason, blogger will only allow me to post 5 pictures per post, so here are some more pictures from around the camp, including our new tent! It's roomy enough to fit all of us plus our gear with space to spare.

We dragged the tent over into the shade for naps, which worked wonders. I got back to camp from the adventurous drive to fill the gas tank (no, I wasn't rushing in a panic because I thought the gas station would run out; I was rushing out in a panic because I thought I might run out) only to find both boys sound asleep and Tara stretched across both air mattresses in the one place where there was a draft of fresh air. Not wanting to disturb them, I found the shade behind the tent... and promptly fell asleep myself!

Eating while camping out is always fun. We discovered that we really badly broke campground etiquette, however, by not bringing a tablecloth. Every other (occupied) campsite had a tablecloth. Even the RV campers next to us, who were outside a grand total of about 3.2 seconds (just enough to get out of the car and go into the RV) had a tablecloth. We did not. Didn't bother us any. Camp food always tastes better anyway.

(After the week at the beach, one of our kids told me that he likes pretzels with sand on them. Just wait until he gets to go canoeing with Grandpa, who knows how to make sand-pancakes!)

This picture really should go after the whole vacation is done, but it's an "around camp" picture, so it will go here. Don't worry; we never closed the trunk or drove like this.

Vacation: Around the Camp!

We had tried camping in a tent with the boys once - this summer at Camp Sychar. It worked out well, so we decided it would be fun to do for more than one night. Here are some pics from around the camp.

The boys loved sleeping in the tent. It was perfect sleeping weather (though a little cool for some members of the family). Jonathan kept sliding out of his sleeping bag and, try as I might, I couldn't keep him in it.

Actually, sleeping was difficult the first night. Partly because we traveled on Thursday and then pretty much went straight to bed, but mostly because it was the first night sleeping in the tent.

One of the fun parts of camping is having a campfire. It's one of the reasons that car camping has any charm over backpacking (was it Jeff Foxworthy who said that camping is a way for people who don't live in a trailor park to vacation in one?) - having a roaring campfire.

Of course, due to our expertise with the Coleman stove (we got more practice during the power outage), the only "over-the-fire" cooking we did was marshmallows. I must admit that I am an expert when it comes to the perfect fire-toasted marshmallow.

We ended up having too much wood for our fire, so I made a nice, big roaring fire.

One family member let us know that the only part of camping that he didn't like was "just sitting there" around the fire. It was "a million boring" according to him.