Matt RaibleMatt Raible is a Web Developer and Java Champion. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

The Angular Mini-Book The Angular Mini-Book is a guide to getting started with Angular. You'll learn how to develop a bare-bones application, test it, and deploy it. Then you'll move on to adding Bootstrap, Angular Material, continuous integration, and authentication.

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10+ YEARS


Over 10 years ago, I wrote my first blog post. Since then, I've authored books, had kids, traveled the world, found Trish and blogged about it all.

The Father's Day Camping Trip

This past weekend, I started a new tradition: taking my kids camping for Father's Day. Since I wasn't sure of the best place to go, I asked Do you know of some good camping spots for kids in Colorado? I received some good responses, but waited until the "day of" to decide where we should go. Bad idea.

I decided on Peaceful Valley since they didn't seem to require reservations and it wasn't too far. The kids and I left town around 1:30 and arrived at the campground (North West of Boulder) around 3:00. It was packed and there were no spots available. After driving around for another hour, I realized I might end up on the FAIL Blog for being the Dad who couldn't find a camping spot and had to spend the night in a motel. I don't know if it's because I grew up in Montana and we never had to reserve campsites or if it's because there's a lot more people in Colorado than I realized. Regardless, I believe I learned my lesson when it comes to campsite reservations.

The Tent After stopping in Nederland and asking for good camping spots at a gas station, we proceeded to drive around for another hour trying to find the perfect site. Finally, at around 5:30, we found a site in the high mountains near the Eldora Ski Resort. It was along the road, had a river nearby and included a family/friends/kids troupe of 15 w/in 100 yards.

We settled in by setting up the tent, starting a campfire and beginning a search for bears (kids' idea). We never found any bears, but we had a lot of fun exploring. I knew my mission had succeeded when Abbie said to me, "Daddy, I love camping." As it got dark, we put the fire out and climbed into the tent and our sleeping bags. Being that there was still snow near our campsite, I was a little worried about the kids getting cold - especially since their sleeping bags are only rated to 35°F.

As we were getting ready for bed, my car suddenly roared to life. Yikes, WTF?! Then I remembered the remote start I had installed after Snow White got molested. I scrambled for my keys, found them under my knee and quickly turned off the car. After telling some stories, we all fell asleep 20 minutes later.

In the middle of the night, Jack woke up every 10 minutes for a couple hours. He'd crawl out of his sleeping bag and then claim to be cold. I'd talk him back into his bag where he'd warm up and fall asleep. Abbie slept all night and never woke up. At around midnight, my car again roared to life. Since my keys were hanging on the tent wall, I was quite surprised. I scrambled to find my keys in the dark and turned it off again. This happened every 3 hours throughout the night. I'm sure the neighbors loved it considering I have some fancy glasspack exhaust system that makes it pretty loud when it starts. I'd be interested to know if this "start every 3 hours" phenomenon happens every night. Maybe that's the reason my tank is always empty. ;-)

The good news is Snow White never woke the kids up, so they seemingly got a good night's sleep. There was frost on the ground when we woke up the next morning, so it did get cold. However, when the sun hit us at 8:45 in the morning, the temperature rose from 40°F to 60°F in a matter of minutes.

The next morning as I was packing things up and the kids were running around, Abbie came up to me. She asked, "Daddy, when can we go camping again? I had so much fun!" I told her she was in luck - our next camping trip is only a couple weeks away. My dad is flying in next weekend and we're doing the annual 4th of July trek to The Cabin. On the way up, we'll be camping in Yellowstone Park. I can't wait, but I should probably start working on that reservation.

Have you taken your kids camping this year?

Posted in General at Jun 19 2008, 08:43:00 AM MDT 4 Comments
Comments:

Sure seems camping is always harder on the Parent. One of my best memories involves camping on the beach in California and waking up to the tide water lapping at the tent. A hurried wakeup call for my Dad but for a kid that was GREAT FUN!

Posted by Christina on June 22, 2008 at 10:44 PM MDT #

Matt -- Try Car Talk, to see if those guys can solve your "start every 3 hours" phenomenon!

Posted by Mariella on June 23, 2008 at 01:42 PM MDT #

Just took our first camping trip with our 14 month old son. He and Jack had a similar experience, only he never verbalized what he thought the problem was :-) My wife backpacked him in, which meant that we had 1) all the additional equipment babies/toddlers require and 2) most of the stuff in my pack. Oy! Good thing it was a relatively short hike to the camp site.

Posted by Kyle Adams on June 23, 2008 at 04:36 PM MDT #

we "camped" in backyard w/ patio chiminea providing fire fathers day weekend. smores included. dad enjoyed a red hook esb.

like your party, little one was up and down and up and down. afraid he'd get by me in sleep and wander the neighborhood, he was sent inside for normal bed. he put up no argument. think he prefers the indoors.

true to form, big son fell fast asleep in minute and slept thru night. slept right thru raccoon scratching at the outside of tent in wee hours. woke up in morning to coming tstorm (been a year for that) and were inside making pancakes by time downpour came.

wasn't much in the roughing it department but good fun for dad and sons. we'll do backyard again and then start getting to the woods once little son more into it.

Posted by erick on June 24, 2008 at 05:33 PM MDT #

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