camping is certainly an adventure…in insanity

A few weeks ago we made our pilgrimage to Yosemite.  It was … interesting.

Emma loved everything about camping except nighttime.  The first two of the three nights her nose bled.  And when I say ‘bled’ I mean to say, bled all over her face and sleeping back and jammies.  The first night we were there she slept on this thing:

Good in theory.  Bad in practice.  It’s a sleeping bag that’s sort of attached to an air mattress.  The air mattress is more like an inflatable raft you take into the pool.  Slightly uncomfortable and VERY LOUD.  So the noise she made moving her around kept her from really falling asleep and kept me from sleeping at all.  She whimpered a bit and tossed and turned until she just woke up completely and started crying.  I got up to calm her down and noticed darkness all over her face.  Grabbed a flashlight and almost had a heart attack when I realized the darkness was blood.

Not.  Fun.

Eventually I brought her into my sleeping bag (I got a ‘big & tall’ bag and it was perfect for fitting either my preggo pillow or a fussy 5 year old) around 5 in the morning.  She slept for a couple of hours and I slept for around an hour.

The first full day at Yosemite was …. long.

We did make it to the valley later in the morning.  Our campground was about 30 minutes or so from the valley.  We headed out with really no plan whatsoever.  Walked around for a bit, but the kids were really tired (and me too) so we didn’t really hike around like we planned.  We did get ice cream and the kids participated in a scavenger hunt that the park puts on and they had fun with that.  I didn’t take as many pictures as I thought I would, as I wanted to, but I did get some.

Just some ground cover.  I thought it looked purty.

Dominic hitching a ride with Ji-Chan.

My brother, looking excited.

Trying to decide what kind of ice cream to get.

Working diligently on their scavenger hunt pictures.

The obligatory picture of Half Dome.

Mossy.

Chloe kicking back.

Sunshiny day.

Before we headed out to Yosemite we got an email from Park Services informing us that nearby our campsite they would be doing a controlled burn of several acres.  Luckily, we weren’t really affected by the smoke, but it was much closer than we thought it would be.

It’s hard to see during the daytime, but this was from the campsite across from us.  From there you could see across the road where they were doing the burn.  All day and during the night as well we could hear trees falling.  I couldn’t believe how loud it was!

Much easier to see at night!  Nuts & crazy and luckily the kids were sleeping when we saw this.  Though Dominic was pretty stoked to see all the fire fighters and trucks!

Despite all the pitfalls we did have a good time.  I love camping, the tents and sleeping bags, s’mores and all the camping food.  It’s just fun and nostalgic.  Plus we were there with some of my favorite people.  Next time though, I think we’ll stay a little closer to home!

flashback

I posted most of these pictures on Facebook awhile ago, but I thought I’d show y’all what it was like back in the day.

This had to have been sometime in 1977 so I would’ve been about a year and a half.  One of my favorite pictures of my mom and I is taken the same day and she doesn’t look like she’s pregnant with my sister who was born in the summer of 1978.  I know, my detective skills are amazing.

We wanted to get a picture of Emma in this kimono, but she wouldn’t do it.

When everyone said how much Emma looks like me I just don’t see it.  After going through these old pictures I finally saw how much we looked alike when I was a baby.  Here I am with my Uncle Robin who I share my birthday with!

This was our Christmas picture in 1978.  My sister was not even half a year old & I was 3.  Look how cute and happy she is here!

I guess you could call this cheater camping.  Since we’re watching TV we might be at my grandparents’ house.  Since they’re house wasn’t that big, but the property was my parents would bring the tent trailer with us when we went to visit.  This was probably around 1983 or ‘84.  My brother was so tiny and cute!  Well, he’s still pretty darn cute, but not so tiny anymore.

My favorite picture of my mom.

My parents started my obsession with Winnie the Pooh.  Notice the awesome curtains in the background.  It was the 70’s people!

This is What it Takes to Make a Yosemite Reservation

Apparently, you need to have your sister on IM so that you can communicate with her about what the hell you’re doing.
You must also have in your possession and turned on:

1. Laptop with Government Parks account already set up and on the page where you make the reservation preferably already on the campsite you want.
2. An iPad in the same state as the above laptop except signed onto a different account (i.e. my husband’s that I made up for him at 6:55 a.m.)
3. A Phone already dialed to the reservation number so all you have to do is hit ‘call.’
4. A litany of curse words handy for doling out to yourself in a whispered tone as to not awake anyone in your house.

Soooo that’s what Amy and I did this morning.  My mom is turning 60 this year and we wanted to do something fun for her that she would like.  Now, if any of you know my mother you know these things.  She cannot handle sitting around at a  party for anyone (herself included) and NOT do anything.  She must help cook or clean or arrange or something.  And she will always say she doesn’t want us to do anything for Mother’s Day, her birthday, my parents’ anniversary, whatever occasion we might celebrate.

But, my mom loves camping.  When we were kids Amy and I were in Girl Scouts and we went camping all the time.  She most always came along either as our leader or a chaperone.  Even without Girl Scouts we went camping plenty.  I’m grateful to my parents for loving and taking us camping so often because I think it’s one of the greatest, cheapest vacations.  I can’t wait to take Emma.

We thought she’d love to go to Yosemite for her birthday and just do a camping trip with our family, her brothers and sisters and their families.  My aunts & uncles that don’t like roughing it will stay at the hotel there, but the rest of us had to get a reservation.  My mom had the unfortunate luck to be born the day after 4th of July which means no way in heck were we getting a reservation anywhere for that weekend, but we decided to try for the weekend after.

Having all of my devices ready to go at 7 a.m. on the dot I began hitting ‘book now’ and ‘call’.  All I got was a busy signal and a ‘campsite is not available’.  Going back to the campsite map, literally every site was booked.  It took less than 2 minutes.  Frantically, my sister and I are IM-ing back and forth and I found another campground in Yosemite that still had sites available and we grabbed them. 

We have no idea if we’re anywhere near anything, but at least we know we’ll be in Yosemite with our family celebrating my Mom!  Good job Amy & me!