Pull on your adventure shoes

Naomi packed two essentials,
other than bunnies.

"We could almost camp this weekend," mentioned Matt. And it was off to the races. The whole trip felt like a whim, but considering we'd been half-trying to camp for a good year and a half, we pretty much had the routine down. In fact, we'd already booked campsites two other weekends, only to have our plans destroyed by reasonable threats of tornadoes. You just don't do that with small children.

On Wednesday, I hurriedly booked the campsite for Friday and Saturday, at a park I'd dredged up using a single Facebook recommendation. I googled exactly 3 dutch oven recipes and jotted down a quick grocery list. And I told the children. Whenever you tell the kids, you'd better be serious, because they don't let you take it back. Only more tornadoes could stop us now!

On Thursday, I gathered food, pre-prepped recipes with Kalina and started packing. On Friday morning, I threatened to cancel the trip if no one could possibly manage to please just pack a bag with actual clothes instead of all stuffed animals. C'mon, guys, let's step it up. Meanwhile, Matt spent a solid 4 hours gathering, inspecting, packing and preparing all the other equipment. I was pretty sure we'd forgotten something, but a careful review of our lists revealed we were at least close. Not bad for such a fly-by-night idea.

And after our previously scheduled meeting of Nature Club on Friday, we were off! Into Friday rush-hour traffic, but nevertheless on our way. In a party kind of mood, I let the girls gorge on Veggie Straws and granola bars the whole way. After all, I didn't really care if they finished their campfire hot dogs or not.

And we arrived! "This isn't at all what I expected," moaned Elise.

What?

Kalina hangs the clothesline
while her sisters simply perch.
Sometimes all you need is a
fence to perch on.

Having actually camped twice before (aside from various backyards), and only in large group campsites, the girls were not prepared for typical state park sites. We quickly realized they'd pictured choosing their own campsite from a large meadow, or under a few trees, not backing in to a small gravel clearing. Nevertheless, they joyfully alighted from the van and immediately began exploring the small area, climbing things, and engaging in all too many narrow misses with the plentiful poison ivy.

While Elise and Naomi claimed perches on the fence that was to keep them from falling over the steep dropoff below, Kalina, still jazzed about the whole idea of camping, actually helped, helping Matt pitch our giant tent while I settled the "kitchen." In between assignments, she eagerly posted the clothesline. And fetched water. And even carried stuff. Elise and Naomi mostly buzzed around like houseflies, but that was fun, too.

Plenty of help around camp!

Soon, we were roasting hot dogs for supper (Naomi decided her "outside of a hot dog" would be better with chips and ketchup inside), and then shortly after, roasting marshmallows for dessert. Elise experimented with a stuffed marshmallow recipe she'd found in her Ranger Rick magazine, and Naomi continually asked for more. The girls relished washing their own dishes in the chilly dishwater, or at least didn't complain, which is new for us.

As the sun set, we abandoned our marshmallows in favor of attending the ranger presentation on spiders. Although it was super dry (the weather, too), we nevertheless enjoyed our rustic wooden benches and watching slides projected outside under a darkening sky. Matt asked good questions, as always, keeping the ranger busy with her smartphone. By the time it was over, the fireflies were out.

The raccoons, meanwhile, had been busy throwing themselves at our hanging garbage bag, with some success. Their success would've been greater had their been more actual food scraps in the bag.

We made our last bathroom stop, brushed our teeth al fresco, and then waited while Matt set up cots. And waited a little bit longer. And then we settled in for a story and a good night's sleep. It worked! We were camping!

The next morning at 5:29, amid raucous birdsong, Naomi and I looked each other in the eye and mutually decided we'd try to go back to sleep. And then at 7:00, we woke up for real, and soon Matt, then Kalina, and finally our deep-sleeping Elise were rousted out. I was super excited to try out my first dutch-oven recipe, baked oatmeal. Kalina had measured the dry ingredients the day before, so I added just a couple of liquids and poured the mixture into the dutch oven. The coals, having warmed surprisingly fast, cooked our oatmeal by the time the girls and I had made the walk to the bathroom and back.

I prided myself on remembering chocolate chips for our topping. Naomi also added a little ketchup, and then a little more until it was just right. And then she actually ate it. Here we were thinking she was a picky eater, and as it turned out, she just needed a little more ketchup in her life. Lesson learned.

They all fit!

We'd brought Grandpa Tom's canoe, and wanted to take it out first thing. So we cleaned up the dishes. And got dressed. And put on sunscreen. And brushed our teeth. And melted down about something. And found all our gear. And packed food away from raccoons. And managed the fire. By 9:00, we were ready, and poor Matt had to shift his expectations for, "Let's get on the lake first thing!" But he survived.

The lake was tiny, but still and beautiful and full of life. We immediately zeroed in on goslings and on tiny frogs. In fact, I'm not sure Elise saw more than a few square feet of the lake in the first 10 minutes, her nose to the ground like a bloodhound seeking out anything slimy she could pick up or wallow in. I think we were all surprised when Naomi decided she wanted to ride in the canoe, despite having been informed that canoes are tippy. Secretly not wanting to let the shore go just yet, Elise graciously offered to let Naomi take her presumed spot. As shore patrol, I took my post by Elise, and alternately hauled buckets or watched for frogs as she carried out her studies.

In the canoe, Naomi shrieked only for the first 20 seconds or so, until she quieted into a calmly terrified state. And then eventually began to enjoy herself. Kalina, meanwhile, quickly learned principles of paddling and steering a canoe. She took to it like, well, a duck takes to water. And is now ready for a kayak, she tells us. After a while, we switched up seating arrangements, several times, until everyone had a turn doing everything they wanted to do--even me! By now, it was rather warm and the lake was getting busier--time to hit the trails.

A stream and a really long
crinoid fossil!

Since lunchtime was approaching, we tackled a smaller trail that we knew had a great stream access point, something that has become increasingly important lately. Naomi, Kalina and I shared the lead while Elise floated from snail to snail, admiring, naming, handling and subsequently "rescuing" each one. Each was precious, unique, and praiseworthy--a treasure, or a rare jewel. The hike was going to take three days.

We were able to convince Elise to speed things up with the promise of a stream, and fortunately the stream soon came into view. Naomi, increasingly adventurous, followed her sisters in and they all splashed around happily for a while. Kalina caught a crayfish and found her largest section of crinoid yet!

Kalina enjoying a camp lunch

All too soon, it was time to make our way back to camp and cook lunch and chill. I admit I was highly motivated to cook, if only to prove that you can actually camp and enjoy halfway decent food, too. We were soon chowing down on quite decent macaroni and cheese--even Naomi, once we pulled out the ketchup. In fact, the kids are still talking about that mac and cheese.

Elise pulled out her tooth!

It was around this time that Elise disappeared into the tent for a bit. She emerged a few minutes later with a big smile and a newly released tooth! The tooth had been loose for a while and Grandpa had said, a few days ago, that it only needed a few more days. Elise decided that the only thing that could make the camping trip any better would be to lose her tooth during it, so she pulled it herself. That's determination for you, right there. We put it in a baggie and, surprisingly, didn't lose it (again) before surrendering it to the tooth fairy herself.

The afternoon was spent embarking on a longer hike--one that was apparently out to get us. Naomi, refreshed and uncharacteristically gung-ho, proudly led the way for the first third. Soon, it became clear that only by walking nearly tightrope-style along the trail would be be able to avoid the poison ivy. This is when the hike became much less fun. The experience degraded even further when we started noticing ticks on each other. Lovely scenery, but we couldn't tear our eyes away from the edges of the trail and each others' bare legs. Fortunately, a stream halfway through kept our spirits up.

Chillin' with some bunnies
and a new favorite book.

In the stream, Elise found a jawbone with teeth! She wanted to keep it, but we reminded her that it's against the rules to keep anything from a state park. But, well, we all do it once in a great while, right? We ended up letting Elise remove one tooth as a souvenir. No sooner had she pocketed her treasure than Naomi's inner rule-breaker alarm sounded:

"Mommy, is it okay to keep things from state parks?" she worriedly questioned, confirming what she knew was true.

"But Mommy, Elise can't keep the tooth! She has to put it back! Elise, put it back!" We went on like this, with Naomi growing increasingly hysterical and Elise edging slowly away.

The decision hadn't been mine, but I was left to explain. Being a rules-follower myself, my answers were rather lame. Because we really should all just follow the rules, they're there for a reason and besides, then we all know what to expect.

Kalina's idea of relaxing: a
cot and a good book.

Soon, we needed to pull in the experts. I patiently explained the situation to Matt. In true Matt style, he fixed the problem in two seconds. Having Elise hand him the tooth (I'm amazed she trusted him at this point, but she did), he employed sleight-of-hand techniques worth of a magician to then quickly toss a piece of a stick far into the woods. Naomi's sobs abated immediately.

Unfortunately, he convinced Elise, too, who teared up as quickly as Naomi pacified. Fortunately, she's used to secret signals from me, being both a communicative and mature child, and soon thereafter Matt surreptitiously transferred the tooth back into Elise's hot little hand. Crisis averted, and Naomi can rest easy in her rules-following world a while longer, although I admit I'm still suffering a bit of cognitive dissonance over the matter.

Two little sweeties, after they'd been
scrubbed, soaped and inspected.

The hike dragged on. We finally made it back to the lake, where all three girls found fresh energy when it came to playing in a stream offshoot with a couple smaller children. After Elise, and then Naomi, took spills on the slippery rocks, we knew it was time to get back to the campsite. The next 45 minutes were spent on poison ivy and tick damage control.

And then another spectacular dinner! Despite pizza dough that didn't seem like it was going to cooperate, we ended up cooking up and polishing off two amazing dutch-oven pizzas. They tasted wood-fired, and restaurant-quality. We broke out another Ranger Rick activity at this point: filling in blanks to make our own spooky/funny adventure stories.

This shot only looks candid:
Elise is a pro at posing and
making it look natural (and
good!)

After a few good laughs and more campfire treats, and we raced down to the lake to try to catch the sun setting. We missed the actual sunset by seconds, having stopped to watch a deer watch us on the way. We nevertheless found a big glob of frog eggs, and then hustled back for the second half of a ranger presentation on snakes. And another night in the tent! This time we made it to sleep a little bit sooner.

I forgot one thing on this camping trip, and it happened to be the syrup for the hearty camp stove pancakes Matt whipped up the next morning while I trekked to the bathroom with the girls. They were still tasty with grape jam and/or leftover cherry pie filling from the campfire treats the night before. Powered up, we again headed for the lake with the canoe.

This time, Matt figured out how to get everyone but me into the boat--Kalina with a paddle, Elise with a net, and Naomi on Matt's lap. They chased frogs for quite a while. I got to be the on-shore frog-spotter. Then, after another hike down the nice hiking trail, and more fun in the stream, we had to break the news that it was time for lunch and tear-down.

Real mac and cheese, real
ingredients! And everyone
ate it! Super easy and so
fun!

As we hadn't initially planned on making it at the park until lunch time, we had to scramble a bit for lunch ingredients. Elise roasted the rest of our hot dogs, super annoyed that she had to cook them fully since we weren't quite confident in our cooler's ability to keep everything as cool as it needed to be, while everyone else began the process of packing up. Along the way we outlawed fence-sitting, since we'd made it this far with no one topping backwards into the "abyss." In the end, we pulled away with about 12 minutes to spare.

What an amazing weekend! I was impressed by the fact that all three rose to the challenge: Kalina really stepping up to take on some more grownup roles, Elise, um, just doing her thing, and Naomi trying some new challenges ranging from a different macaroni and cheese recipe to canoeing to leading the way on tricky hiking trails. Matt and I also felt a strong sense of accomplishment: not getting overly cranky (mostly), and planning a pretty awesome trip that will undoubtedly lead to more.