Our Camping Catastrophe

OK, so it wasn't a catastrophe, but I just wanted to title the post that. Last Friday Steve and I went to Iron Mine Campground in Duschene. I had never been out that way and it was our first time camping in a tent on our own. So I was slightly nervous. Camping to me was always take the trailer up to the Uintas and find a place to park it. I do not remember ever going tent camping. I just kept thinking of more and more things we were going to need and I didn't want to forget any of them! So we headed off around 6pm on Friday. Steve's sister, Carolyn, and her family went up the night before. We were hoping to get there in enough time to set up our tent before dark, especially since it was brand new and we hadn't even taken it out of the package.


We got there, said hi to everyone, and starting setting up our tent. Steve's parents had come up for the day so we said a quick hello to them. It only took an hour to put up the tent! I think that's pretty good for just two people and a few kids holding poles! I wish I had taken pictures of the process, but then it would probably have taken an hour and a half! :)


We were starving by the time we were done. Carolyn had cooked dinner for us. It was great! Then we had s'mores by the fire with Carolyn, Bob, and all the kids. After that, we all went to bed.


It was stinking cold! Good thing our sleeping bags could be zipped together! *Wink, wink* Every once in a while I would wake up shivering and go cuddle with Steve. He had really good timing and was always awake at the same time, or maybe it was my bear hug that woke him up...who knows? That night I had to get up and go to the bathroom, as always. I got up, was shivering really bad, put on my hoodie and winter coat, went out of the tent to put my shoes on, and said, "Screw it, I'm not walking all the way to the outhouse." I just went outside the tent. Then came back in and Steve warmed me back up! I have such a great husband! I mean, come on, he's cute, smart, and warm...can't beat that!


The next morning we woke up to the light tapping of children on the tent outside. Steve got dressed and went out to go start making breakfast. I, on the other hand, pretended to sleep some more. The kids decided it would be a good idea to jump on me to wake me up. Good idea, till Maddie lost her caterpillar in the sleeping bag somewhere...still haven't found that little bugger. Steve made Camp Cereal which is basically homemade oatmeal. It had cracked wheat, oats, dried apples, sunflower seeds, and craisins in it. I'm sure there are some more mystery ingredients that I don't know about, but you get the gist. We ate that and dry toast...yum!


Then we went for a walk up the Duschene River. It has a lot of runoff and the trail was filled with water. So we hiked a swamp...it was kind of fun trying to find the best route and jumping over streams. A couple of the kids started wishing they were back at their trailer so we turned around and came back. We ate hotdogs cooked over the fire, chips and salsa, and carrots. After lunch, the Moultries started to pack up to go home. Steve went down to start cutting wood for our fire that night and I kept Maddie and Jeni busy till they were called to help too.


After the Moultries left, we sat by the fire and read our books till we couldn't see anymore. While we read, our tinfoil dinners cooked in the coals of the fire. Steve was smart and pre-made them at home. They were filled with bison, potatoes, carrots, onions, and onion soup mix. OMG they were delicious! Steve fully expected to be throwing away half of it, because he had made them so big, but I guess we were starving. Both of us ended up eating the whole thing! We roasted a few marshmallows for s'mores and then went to bed.


The next morning we woke up to rain tapping on our tent. Luckily we predicted this would happen and had taken everything in out of the rain. I cooked a lovely meal of french toast and eggs under the patio part of our tent while Steve cleaned things up in the cooler. We had used dry ice to keep things cold and, well, it kind of exploded three diet coke cans inside the cooler...oh well. During this whole time we were keeping a list of things we should bring next time, well, guess what was on it? Maybe some butter or syrup or possibly jam for our french toast?? Oh well, we'll know next time. So we ate our french toast plain and then decided to pack up and leave. We put a tarp down in the trunk and threw the wet tent in a big ball on top of it. We decided what was the use of folding it in the rain only to have to take it out again when we got home.


On our way home we decided to keep track of how many deer we passed. On the way there we weren't keeping track but predicted we had seen upwards of 25 deer. Well we got all the way home and saw a total of two deer...unfortunately they were dead ones on the side of the road. Later that evening we did see two live deer in a field in Layton. We figured they were probably all out eating dinner on our way up to the camp site and were taking their afternoon naps on our way home. Oh well!


We had a great time! And as for me, I'm totally excited to go again! Now I just need to track down the 40 or so items on our list of things to bring next time!


Please click on our web album to view all our pictures. There were just too many for blogger and my sanity to handle.

Camping 2009