On the Verge of Camping: Part One

We went camping!

It was something that had been on my bucket list for a while, so once the girls and I discovered the perfect spot a mere 25 minutes from our house, I knew that it was time for our first family wilderness expedition and campout.

So, a few Friday afternoons ago, I loaded up the car with all the necessary equipment and food, and the girls and I swung by Neckflicks and busted Matt out early so we could enjoy some time in the untamed wilderness before it got too dark.

At the park, we were pleased to discover that Alice could locate campsite number seven, the one we had reserved, by pointing to the large "#7" on the park map handed to us upon entry. We tucked our orienteering skills away for future use. The cargo space in Joanna’s stroller was full to capacity with beer and brats, so we had to load our collapsable aluminum captains chairs onto our shoulders, making the journey especially grueling.  My experience hiking the Inca Trail was a boon to the family at this point, when spirits were lagging.*

Once camp was established, we knew that survival priority number one would be locating a source of water. We couldn’t believe our luck when we discovered a faucet right at our campsite.

We then set off on a reconnaissance mission to explore the surrounding area, look for droppings, follow animal tracks, and identify any threats to our safety in the surrounding forest. Having found none, we hastened back to the campsite, as it was nearly four o’clock, and nightfall was fast approaching.

Back at camp, we reflected on how nice it was to just be together in the woods with few distractions.  But for the noise from the thirty or so other campers in the park that evening, it was absolutely pin-drop quiet.  We were so pleased to be joining the ranks of nature lovers like Daniel Boone, H.D. Thoreau, and Timothy Treadwell.

As centuries of outdoorsmen have done before us, we basked in the glow of a fire that we coaxed to life with our hands, great effort, finesse, and a bag of charcoal that came presoaked in lighter fluid and, later, a firestarter log.

Our appetites stoked by fresh air and physical labor, we ate and drank heartily from the provisions we had packed.

After dinner, we invented the most charming dessert that I feel I must share with you all.  Noticing that the texture of marshmallows could be improved by roasting them over the fire, we sandwiched a few toasty ‘mallows and some chocolate pieces between two graham crackers.  I know it sounds crazy, but our zany creation was absolutely delicious!  Alice declared it to be “gooey-er and gooey-er” and kept asking us for some more of the nameless dessert.

After we had eaten all we could and exhausted our repertoire of campfire tales, we doused the fire with water and watched the great clouds of smoke and steam billow up. Alice found them to be "perfectly wonderful."

We broke camp, retraced our steps back to our transport vehicle, and drove back home with the smell of firewood lingering on our clothes, bratwurst juices lingering on our pants, baby food and spit-up lingering on my shirt, and dirt lingering on the sticky marshmallow residue lingering on our fingers, mouths, cheeks, and hair.



Alice was deep in the throes of a sugar crash/nature high duet as we made our way home.  Driving out of the park, she offered us her observations on the experience: "Dad, we're in nature. Recycling. It's so beautiful and so trees." We hurried home, with four little eyelids in the back seat getting droopier and droopier.

Up in the front of the car, Matt and I congratulated each other for being such intrepid, adventure-courting parents.  We would return home triumphant, having  survived, nay, thrived, during our sojourn in the wilderness.

We went camping!

Bucket list goal: completed.

End post.

What’s that you say?

Sleep in a tent?

All night?

Outside?

Heavens no, we didn’t do that.

Is that something that most campers do?

I see.

That would explain the snickers and head scratching we received from our fellow campers during our 8pm victory march back to our car.

So, you’re telling me that we didn’t actually go camping?

Please don’t tell Alice.

*I did not hike the Inca Trail. I did, however, make all of the preparations to do so, including, my top action item: purchasing 10 or so Snickers bars to keep up my energy along the way.  Unfortunately, my traveling companion contracted a relentless case of Montezuma’s Revenge so we had to cancel our plans and hide out in our Cuzco hotel for three days while she recovered and I ate Snickers bars.

Friends and Family

One major downside to living in California is that we're far from lots of people we love. The upside to our location, however, is that we've been able to spend more quality time with some others of our favorite people.

Jeff and Matt became friends in college, and now that we're all grown up, Jeff and his lovely fiancée Julia, who live up in San Francisco, have become family friends.  Alice adores her godfather Jeff, to a large degree because she has finally found someone unrelated to her who is willing to indulge her goofy sensibilities.

We are also beyond excited that Cousin Dylan is, at least for now, just a very short plane ride (or a longish car ride) away in Southern California. I know that doesn't sound so close, but just knowing that we're in the same state and that we could drive if we wanted to is very comforting. 

He and Vola tagged along recently when a work trip brought Jason to our area.

The first day they were here, Vola and I didn't make it out of the house with the kids at all because one out of the three kids was napping or failing Quiet Time 101 the whole time.

The next morning, however, we hit the sidewalk as soon as the two little kids woke from their morning naps and we enjoyed nearly sixty whole minutes at the park until it was time to go home for lunch.

We could have used an extra set of hands (actually we could have used two extra sets: one to wrangle the third kid and the second to hand us snacks and drinks all day).

One thing I'm learning as we're a few months into our second big move is that hanging out with good friends and family can make any place begin to feel more like home. 

Just Photos

Stanford Picnic

One morning a few weeks ago, the girls and I packed a picnic and a blanket and headed over to Palo Alto to see what Stanford had to offer us. 

Once we parked the car, we walked a bit until we found a grassy patch under the trees by the Cantor Art Center.

We shed our shoes and stretched out on the blanket.

And enjoyed being outdoors on a beautiful day.

When one of us started getting antsy, circles were run around the Rodin sculptures in the garden.

And when we needed a restroom we made our way to the arts center itself.

On our way in, Alice played "shake the bees" among the lavender.  Then I realized that "shake the bees" meant trying to pinch the bees off of the top of the plants with her fingers.

We entered the Cantor Center by way of a spectacular, light-filled room and an array of bronze sculptures, including Rodin's famous The Thinker.

Spirits were lagging by the second floor, so we thought we'd just head home.

And maybe take a rest.

But, as we strolled by Memorial Court and the main quad, we realized that it was the perfect spot to take a spin on the balance bike.

Alice saw this innocent looking trio walking towards her and shouted, "Mom, hurry, we have to get away from these three monsters!" They actually didn't seem that offended.

She greeted The Burghers of Calais.

As the afternoon wore on, spirits once again dipped a bit.



There was a standoff which resulted in my having to pretend to leave so that Alice would follow me to the car. She began wailing but followed along behind me, her head hanging, shoulders drooping, feet dragging, and arms crossed in a pitiful self-embrace. I'm guessing that crying children trailing behind briskly walking mothers aren't common around campus, judging from the two different people who emerged from nearby buildings to investigate the racket and come to the rescue of what they were sure was a child in serious distress.

And even though we lost the car for a while and spent nearly 45 minutes wandering among what seemed like hundreds of identical buildings, we arrived back to our two hour parking spot after nearly four hours and saw that there was no ticket on our windshield.  

We decided that Stanford has plenty to offer three adventurous girls on a lovely summer day!

Adults Only

When we decided to move to California, I joked that priority #1 would be to find a place to live and priority #2 would be to find a good an available babysitter.  There were a couple of other items on the list that ended up taking precedence over the babysitter (like the grocery store and the gas station), but not many.  Now that we've come to the end (I hope) of many months of dwelling in the logistics of new baby, new job, new city and new house, we've been making up for lost time by getting out on our own for some dates.

For our anniversary, Matt surprised me with an aerial tour of the San Francisco Bay. 

Not surprisingly, I was a little nervous once I figured out what we would be doing. I irrationally became even more nervous when I saw that our pilot was wearing braces on his teeth.  (I'm sorry, but they just scream "I'm really working hard in pre-Algebra this year" to me.)  I relaxed a little when he told me that he had spent eight years in the Peruvian air force and had been flying for about twenty years. Then I became nervous again when, before takeoff, he asked for our help in "watching out for other planes in the sky."  He barked some important sounding code commands into his radio: I relaxed.  I noticed the "low fuel levels" light flickering on and off: nervous again. 

Finally, once we got up in the sky, I loosened up and really enjoyed the experience.

 

This guy doesn't seem to get nervous.

 

It was quite an outing and a fantastic introduction to the Bay area.

 

A few weeks later, I planned a day of wine tasting in Napa to celebrate Matt's birthday. (Yeah...so maybe each of us was motivated by just a hint of self interest. cough airplanerideforme cough winetastingforMatt cough)

I decided that as long as we were in for a penny, we might as well be in for a pound, so I found someone to drive our car for us all day. I wasn't sure if the expense was going to be worth it, but...

 

...it most definitely was! We visited four different wineries and tasted a few different wines at each. It felt like a mini vacation in a day.

  

We can't wait to see what else Northern California has to offer. But, I promise that in the meantime, I'll return to our regularly scheduled programming of squishy baby photos and funny Alice stories.