Camping Virgins

We are so lucky to live in a place where the great outdoors is quite literally at our door step. I was so excited to get out in it. I was going to tame the wild. We would explore the trails, sleep under the stars, sing camp fire songs while roasting s'mores, and the fish would just jump onto the shores waiting to be pan fried.

We were all set on Friday. Kids were sun-screened up, I was rocking my jeans and boots (someone said rattlesnakes so my AZ girl figured time to pull out the cowgirl boots and rock the Daisy Duke look with my baseball cap.) jammed everything in my jeep, and off we went.

We headed down a dirt road and pulled into a little green oasis in the high Idaho desert, and we found the perfect spot in the shade with a view of the river. Perfection. Our first snag came when we realized we had no clue what we were doing with our tent. It was Nayt's first ever camping trip and I haven't camped since I was 17. I am sure our neighbors were laughing at us fighting with our brand new in the box still 10 person tent.

Once our camp was set up we set off exploring. The camp ground was tiny, but pretty. Right off the river, and we found a nice little beach so the kids could play the next day. We then headed back to camp and the fatal mistake reared it's head. The freight train, 20 yards away. And it would go by every 2-3 hours, all day and night long, and every time poor Alynn would scream bloody murder. I would like to talk to the person who thought "Hey, let's put a camp ground RIGHT NEXT to the tracks!" It had to have been a man. But lucky for us, Drew adores trains and loved every single minute of every single train. At least it made one of us happy. 

Once the train went by, we started getting settled for the night, and Nayt took Drew out for his first big boy fishing try. They looked to cute heading off to the river together, while I got Alynn ready for bed. They came back empty handed but happy. Then it was time to start a fire. And guess what, I fail at making a camp fire. If it wasn't for our neighbor we would have been fire less. And then it was bed time. Drew refused to sleep, woke his sister, and when we finally got them asleep the damn train came through waking them both up. When they were finally actually asleep the wind picked up. In all, I think we got 3-4 hours of sleep and Drew woke us up at 4:30. We let him lay in bed and talk to us for the next hour or so.

When we finally crawled out of our wind blown tent, it was what I wanted. Peacefully, cool, green, and a yummy breakfast outside. The kids played. We crawled back into the tent and started reading "The game of thrones" out loud and all four of us fell asleep, waking up to more peace and birds chirping. We fished. Didn't catch a dang thing but it was fun. After our ill fated fishing trip it was lunch, 2nd attempt at naptime and then we headed down to the river to play in the water. By this point it was pushing about 100 degrees outside. Lexy and the kids had a blast playing in the water, and even I got in on the action to cool off while Nayt continued to try and fish.

Once we got back to camp our second fatal error reared it's ugly head, we had no more water and that parks "Drinkable water" was a joke. 

After realizing that the train was still making Alynn cry, the heat was killing us, and having Drew ask for the millionth time to go home, we called it and started to pack up our gear. Poor little birthday boy crawled into the car and sat in his car seat until we buckled him in. He actually cheered when we pulled into our house.  Mr. Woodsman this kid is not.

We lasted exactly 24 hours in the "wild".

Our camping days are not over, in fact we plan on going again in a month or so. But with a heck of a lot more prep, more research on camp grounds, and no freight trains. We also looking into trucks, and will be going with friends. This is hopefully the first of a long love affair with being outside. At least we are no longer camping virgins, the pain of our first trip just needs to dull a bit before we try again!