First camping trip of the season!

Esther has been talking about camping--specifically, sleeping in a tent, eating hotdogs and roasting marshmallows--all winter long!  Apparently our last camping trip of the fall made a deep impression.  So faced with unseasonably warm temperatures and a free Friday night on the 2nd day of April, we decided to go on a spontaneous camping trip.  There is a park not too far from us that has a wooded campground, and if you tune out the occasional faint traffic noises and overlook the fact that you can only see the few brightest stars in the sky, it's almost as good as being in the middle of nowhere, only a whole lot shorter drive.  So we duly packed up food, sleeping bags, etc. (this time we remembered the oil and salt for our scrambled eggs!), drove to the park, picked out a campsite, and set up our tent.  Esther was thrilled with everything, except for not being allowed to breathe down Daddy's neck while he cooked on a propane stove on a not-quite-flat picnic table top, and for not being allowed to get too close to the campfire.  She was also somewhat less than thrilled with the fact that it got dark before we went into our tent--I had not factored in the fact that she has developed some fear of the dark since the last time we camped, so I got to clean up for the night one-handed while balancing her on my hip where she felt safe.  But the roasted marshmallows were a hit, and what could be better than sleeping on three layers of quilts on a slight incline?  (Do you detect the fact that Mommy did not agree on the last point?  I was in the middle, and Tim kept rolling into me, but I couldn't roll out of his way because I didn't want to squish Esther.  However, I enjoyed the marshmallows at least as much as Esther did!)

In the morning, we looked at holes that a woodpecker had made in a nearby tree, found a sprouting nut on the ground, shooed several spiders out of the tent, and examined the piles of dirt near the entrances to ant-holes (the ants being strangely absent at the time).  It made me nostalgic for my own childhood, and glad that Esther can have some experiences just exploring and enjoying the outdoors.  After eating breakfast and packing up, we went for a hike. Early on, we met several joggers, whom Esther decided to emulate.  She probably ran more than a mile, with occasional stops to beg to be carried (but if we tried to convince her to walk instead, she would take off jogging again).  The very last part of the hike we took turns carrying her and having her walk between the yellow splotches on tree-trunks that marked the trail.

So despite the dark and the incline, I think it's safe to say that our first camping trip this year was a rousing success!