Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Camping

This last weekend we went camping one last time. I love camping, but I don't love camping when I know that we're all going to freeze at night. When I was packing blanket after blanket and every piece of winter clothing that we own, you can imagine how much we have since we came from Florida and it's not like we live in Minnesota or some other frozen tundra. Anyway I was trying to think and be prepared like a good outdoors person would be and B was telling me that it wasn't going to be that cold. He thought that we would be fine. When I rattled off that I had planned on having little B sleep in five or six layers he told me that he would probably get hot with all that stuff on. As I have mentioned before, I'm pretty sure that my blood only runs at luke warm. I feel like I am usually cold, so to hear that we were going to be fine sleeping outside in a tent when it was only going to be in the high 40's did not ring truth to my heart. We got there just before dark on Friday. We set up camp and joined the two other families that were going to be freezing camping with us for the evening. Truthfully I didn't get too cold until about 8:00. I had on a ski hat, gloves and a sweatshirt. I don't own a winter coat so that's as bundled as I have. If I stood right next to the fire it wasn't too bad. I did wish there was some way to move the hot coals over just a little so that I could sit in the fire pit for just a minute or two.
This was taken right before little B went to bed. M and K loved it and almost didn't notice how cold it was.
I was on little B duty when it came time to get him ready for bed. I left his onesie on, put on a pair of fuzzy footie pajamas. Put his shirt and pants back on him, then his sweatshirt, his winter coat and a ski hat. Our friend had let us borrow these little bootie things to cover his feet. I put a thick baby quilt over him and then after brilliant J suggested it,  put a quilt over his pack-n-play to turn it into a little igloo for him.
Thankfully he was tired enough that he fell asleep pretty fast. We just prayed that he would be warm enough that he would stay asleep all night. We didn't know how we would warm him up and get him back to sleep without waking up the entire camp ground. Prayers are heard and answered! He stayed asleep until 7:00 the next morning! K wanted to go to bed not too long after little B was asleep. K isn't cold very often so when I told him that I thought he should sleep with his hat on he said no, that he would be warm enough with his jammies, fuzzy pants and sweatshirt inside his sleeping bag with two blankets.
When I felt his face to see if he was cold when we went to bed, he felt warm and cozy. M on the other hand was freezing! Before she went to bed she climbed in my lap and tried to curl up in a ball. She said that her feet were so cold they hurt. That made me feel bad. She slept with her jammies, fuzzy pants, sweatshirt, coat, mittens and hat on. I shoved a thick blanket in her sleeping bag with her.
Clearly her hat didn't stay on, but in the morning when I asked her if she had been able to stay warm she said yes except her feet had stayed cold for a long time. B was colder than he thought he would be. We both broke our cardinal rule of no socks in bed. We kept our socks and and still froze. I feel like our sweatshirts, gloves and hats didn't do as much as we thought they would. We did sleep a little and woke up to little B standing up in his pack-n-play waving and saying hi to all of us.
He slept until 7, but it was still dark outside. We tried to hang out in the tent until it got a little lighter outside. He was ok for a while, but pretty soon, taking pictures didn't work anymore. 
So sad! He kept walking to the door and saying,"out out"  I am glad that we all survived the night! Not that we would want to be camping when it was that cold again, but we know that we can if we're crazy enough to do it again! The plan for Saturday was to pack everything up and go hiking. The camp ground was beautiful and we had heard that the hike to the waterfall was pretty cool and easy. Since there was a whole lot of little ones we wanted an easy hike. Thankfully the sun came out and warmed almost everyone up.
This is all the little kids that were at the camp out with us. M and K loved having so many kids to play and hike with. This was at the trail head to the waterfall.
The trail was beautiful! We got to hike along water for a lot of the time. It was shaded almost the whole time. We loved that we weren't melting as we hiked.
We had stopped here to take pictures and throw leaves in the water and watch them float under the bridge and come out the other side. The water was moving so slow! It took the leaf at least two minutes to come out the other side and the bridge was probably only five feet wide.
This was just on the side of the trail. I don't think I will ever get tired of waterfalls. They are so beautiful!
I feel like this was a secret spot. In order to get here we had to duck under some really big rocks and squeeze through some tight spots. Maybe it was only tight to me since I had little B hooked onto the front of me. I didn't actually see this little piece of waterfall. They had to hike over some moss covered boulders to get there and I didn't want to slip and fall with little B so I just waited with J and J while the dads took the kids that wanted to, to go see the water.
This is the end waterfall that we hiked to. If I remember correctly, it's and 80 foot waterfall. The wind coming off of it was really cold. We didn't stay super long just because it was so cold. It was beautiful and I loved that we got to hike to it.
B is a way better photographer than I am. The other families had asked him to take their pictures. Little B and I sat down to wait. He held my hands almost the whole time because his hands were so cold. Thankfully he doesn't mind being in the baby carrier. He loved to wave at the people we passed and say hi. He had said hi to an older lady that was hiking up. She stopped hiking, walked over to him, pinched his cheeks and said with a foreign accent, "Hello baby! Look at your cheeks!" Then she backed away waving the whole time. He kind of smiled at her, but mostly he just stared at her wondering what was going on. 
Of course the picture doesn't do the colors justice. It was beautiful! Red leaves are my favorite fall leaves so to see these red tree's made my heart so happy!
Right at the end of the hike I took him out of the carrier and let him walk around. He was so happy to be out and to be able to explore things. Standing on the bridge was one of his favorite things to do. He would walk from one side of the bridge to the other to see both sides of the river. Besides freezing at night, we really did have a good time. To be able to go on a hike that is so beautiful almost made the freezing night worth it! We loved being with the other families and staying up late talking about things we wish we could do and not feel guilty about. I'll let you use your imaginations on that one, but I'll tell you that some of the answers were awesome! Yay for fall camping that's only one night and a beautiful hike to a gorgeous waterfall! 


1 comment:

  1. It sounds just way too cold but the hike looks AWESOME! I want to go on a good hike especially with the fall colors. Someday...

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