Expedition

We took Petra on her first camping trip last weekend. Well, sort of first–as Carlos pointed out, I was 33 weeks pregnant when we went camping last summer (not recommended…).

We camped at Mathews Arm Campground in the Shenandoah National Forest. The sites there are a bit small and close together. We’ve camped in the Forest before, but at a different campground (I think it was Loft Mountain, but I don’t remember). I thought that one was better.

The evening went well. We got all the tents set up fairly quickly and got a fire going. The kids loved playing in the tents, of course. Silas said, “Camping is like a village where you sleep in a tent.”

We had dinner and then some marshmallows. JC and I had a philosophical discussion about how many marshmallows is appropriate. I said one per year of age, up to some reasonable cap. Like, maybe six? He thought the cap should be thirty. I’m interested in other people’s marshmallow policies.

All went well until it started raining at about 2 am. Silas was pressed up against the wall of the pup tent, and the water wicked through. He was soaked! So then, we had the whole family in a theoretically three-person tent. I’m pretty sure each child counts for at least two-and-a-half people. I ended up finishing the night sitting in the passenger seat in the car.

The weather was too rainy the next day to attempt a hike with the kids, though we wanted to. We drove home in the rain and admired the clouds hanging down in the valleys.