The Not Quite a Complete Disaster Camping Trip

Five years ago, we took the boys on a day trip to Fairy Stone State Park, and had such an excellent time we thought we'd like to camp there at some point (for fun, here is my first post about Fairy Stone - they were so little!)

So Friday night we got all our gear packed up and Saturday morning we were out the door around 7 am, to get to the park by 8.  We wanted two full days of fun.  When I booked our site, there was no chance of rain, but two days later the weather had shifted.  We were hoping that the storms would pass quickly, if at all.

 Once we were set up, the boys were already complaining they were hungry, so we decided to fix an early lunch.  It was supposed to storm in the evening, so we decided to make dinner for lunch and save the sandwiches for storming weather.  Sweet potatoes and corn on the cob and hot dogs hit the spot. 

Our roomy REI Kingdom tent.  We hadn't used it in rain before, so we were hoping for the best.  REI makes high quality gear, in our experience.  You can see my comfy camping cot.  Paul and I can sleep on the ground, but with plenty of room in the tent, I figure why not bring a cot. 

After lunch we hit the lake.  They have a playground for the kids that is so much fun.  Luckily, it wasn't too terribly crowded.  The boys had a blast.

The water was cool but not too cold to enjoy.  I wished I had brought a swimsuit, but at least I remembered the boys'.

While the boys were swimming, Paul took our kayak out.  The boys each took a turn, too.  By the time it was my turn, the first storm was rolling in, so I decided to wait until the next day. 

After dinner, we went to look for fairy stones.  After all the rain we've had, we found tons and tons of fairy stones!  Reid found over 100!  Everyone had bulging pockets on the way back to camp (you can see my old post for a chart of how they look).  The evening was the perfect time to search, because everyone else seemed to be back at camp for the night.  We had the whole place to ourselves.

 

 

Reid checks out his fairy stone collection by lantern light that evening.  We went to sleep around 9, but then the storms started rolling in.  We really got pounded!  Over and over again waves of storms rolled through.  Thankfully, our tent with rain fly was excellent.  Not a single spot got damp.

 

Unfortunately, Reid woke up around 4 am complaining of stomach pain.  Then by 6, Cort was up as well, and started vomiting in the woods behind our tent.  Having kids struck down by the stomach flu in the middle of the woods when you have a bunch of gear to pack up is not a good thing.  Cort threw up again and again as we rolled up sleeping bags and put away chairs and such.  No coffee this morning.  It seemed like we would never get everything packed up. 

 

Thank goodness we were only an hour drive away.  It was a VERY long hour.  We were sad we didn't get our second day of hiking and kayaking and fairy stone hunting.  We'd had such a great time the day before.  Paul said, "Maybe next time we can just do a day trip again".  I have to say - I second that!  And hopefully our next overnight camping trip (wherever we go) will be much smoother.