The Camping Trip That Wasn't

On Friday evening we excitedly set out for our last camping trip of the summer.

We were on the road by 5:45pm and had only an hour and a half drive to reach our site.

I had visions of sitting around the campfire reading a good book.

Justin was looking forward to cooking us a pizza in the dutch oven.

A relaxing family weekend in the great outdoors.

Alas, we reached our camp site to find this:

Camping without a campfire?

I think not.

In our defense, we had checked the website that same day to confirm there were no burn bans.

So either the website wasn't updated or the ban was placed after we checked.

Who knows?

It has been crazy hot and dry around here. I can't even tell you the last time we saw a good rain.

So the burn ban wasn't a total surprise.

Just a huge disappointment.

Knowing most of our food would need a heat source to prepare,

and knowing that our morning temps would probably only be in the 40's,

we decided to turn around and head back home.

But first we stopped to stretch our legs a bit.

Kendry saying "I want to go camping, Mommy."

His patience with me was wearing thin.

Now he is saying "No more cheesing, Mommy" as he walks away from the me,

a subtle hint for me to put the camera away.

Justin threw his line in a few times,

but the fish weren't biting.

Kendry wanted to help Daddy with his "squishing".

We knew if we told Kendry we had to go back home it would trigger a major meltdown.

So we kept up the facade and told him we still had to drive to get to our campsite.

Finally, the kiddo dozed off.

Knowing Kendry would continue to ask when we were going camping if he woke up in his own bed in the morning, we opted to do this:

We set up camp in our back yard!

We fell asleep admiring the moon and stars,

we didn't have to worry about getting too cold during the night,

and we still got to enjoy hot cocoa around our campfire in the morning.

Messes like this hot chocolate fu manchu seem so much more managable when you have easy access to a sink and shower.

It wasn't quite what we had in mind for our last camping trip of the season, but it still made a memory.

And I swear, I only dare to pull off this fashion faux pas when I'm camping.