We decided to give camping another shot this weekend. The closest state park to our house, Lake Mineral Wells State Park, recently imposed a two-night minimum on the weekends, so we haven’t been there in a while. We really like the park but the kids just can’t quite handle a two night trip yet. This week, I took off work on Good Friday, so we reserved a campsite for Thursday night. It really worked out well because we were able to get the single night campsite and the weather was really nice. It’s been a long couple of weeks at work, so it was really nice to get away for a little bit.
Here are the kids hanging out by the fire. Notice Nathan finishing his nuggets. Since we went after work, we decided to drive through Chik-Fil-A instead of cooking at the campsite.
Camping buddies
We were ready for bed pretty soon and we all piled in the tent. It was a nice night, clear and mild, the temperature was in the mid-50s. I bought Nathan a new Spiderman sleeping bag, which he liked, but not for sleeping. We finally got everyone to sleep sometime after 10pm, but about 1:00am, Nathan woke up screaming. We got him back to sleep, but he woke up again screaming about 15 minutes later. It seems he does not like to sleep in a tent. Part of the problem was that he wouldn’t get in his sleeping bag, so I think he was a little cold. After another 5-10 minutes of him crying, Jennifer decided to take him home. Hannah and I decided to stay. She reminded me that she was good at camping and that sometimes babies that cry have to go home, but not her. We were back to sleep in pretty short order and slept fine the rest of the night, except for some howling coyotes that woke me up later. The next morning, this is how we found the campsite (Jennifer had left the food and some of the gear for us):
After breakfast, Hannah and I broke camp and left everything at the campsite while we took a short hike along the lake
We went down by the water for a bit
And Hannah did a performance for the camera
About mid-morning, Jennifer and Nathan returned from the house (it is about a 30 minute drive), and we went over to Penitentiary Hollow to play in the rocks.
We went through this “cave” looking for a bear……no luck
I scrambled around on some of the rocks
Nathan had a blast. He loves everything about camping except actually sleeping in the tent
We had a great time and can’t wait to go back. Hopefully Nathan will be able to make it a full night soon!