Aspen Camping

I’ve probably mentioned somewhere to most of you that I don’t camp.  Humans have evolved to have indoor plumbing, central heat, and carpets and I don’t see any reason why giving that up for “fun” makes any sense.

I may have to rescind that statement after going on an actual camping trip.  Now, we did go on a few camping trips before we had kids, and they were fun, but the last time we went camping was when the boy was 18 months old and it was an unmitigated disaster.  I know many of you camp with toddlers and purport to have a good time, but I find that the work/fun ratio was too high on the work side to make it enjoyable.  Also, he didn’t sleep so we didn’t sleep and it was miserable.

A neighbor family invited us to go camping a few weekends ago, and so we all made it up to a campground just past Kenosha pass. The timing was perfect and we were surrounded by a field of bright yellow aspens.

The first night was freezing, and the ground was hard. I woke up to bruised, cold hips. In the morning, I looked at the tent and saw that the ceiling vents were open, conveniently letting all of the heat out of the tent, which made me feel like a right moron.  We fixed it the next night and were quite toasty.

The rest of the weekend was filled with tree climbing, bike riding, fishing, campfires and exploring the wild wild woods next to the site.

Eric worked especially hard during the trip.

On our hike we even found a beaver pond, complete with dam!

It was a great time away and I *might* even be up for some camping trips in the future…as long as I can bring a fluffier air mattress with me next time.