The Great Outdoors

Ben and Sam have been begging to go on a camping trip. Begging. It's adorable and a little pathetic. They were asking me all day when we were going camping, and then the second Zach would get home they would ask him. I'm all for camping. It's fun, cheap, chaotic, and good for the soul. Especially once you are home and showered. So, we went camping for a night down in Big Basin Redwoods State Park. Partially to have a fun time with the boys and part as an experiment to see what kind of gear we needed to make camping a more enjoyable experience for all of us.

We had a lot of fun, despite the fact that it was absolutely freezing. It took me a whole day to warm up again.

Ben and Sam climbing on a fallen tree (Sam insisted on wearing flip-flops)


This was the start of a little hike we took after we had the tent all set up and whatnot. Very slow going.

The hike went something like this: Walk ten feet. See a leaf. Stop and examine leaf. Walk two feet. See a stick. Stop and pick up stick. Walk twenty feet swinging the stick and insisting on holding Mommy's hand. Mommy makes you put down the stick or walk farther away from everyone to avoid eyes getting poked out. See rock! Stop and pick up rock. Throw rock. Cry because you want another rock. Look! Another rock. Etc, etc.

Obviously, it was an awesome hike. Actually, it was right up my alley because I am a super slow hiker.


The waterfall we hiked to. (It wasn't quite as steep a drop as it looks in this picture, but we still kept a hold of the boys)

Ben and Waterfall (and my hand grabbing onto his jacket)

Right after we left the waterfall we were standing by a large sandstone rock formation and Ben found a newt/salamander (I'm really not sure which is which). Ben wanted to keep it for a pet and Sam kept saying, "what a cute little guy!"

the boys and wild newt

We continued our hike on to Slippery Rock, where we climbed up to the top. On the way down Sam got ahead of everyone and came within about twenty feet of three deer. He thought is was cool, but not as cool as a newt. Not even close.

Sitting at the top of Slippery Rock

What Ben and Sam really wanted to do while camping, the one thing that could not by any means be forgotten, was to build a fire and roast marshmallows. We could only find strawberry and vanilla flavored marshmallows at the store the day before. Weird, but the boys liked them.

Also, the wood we bought was quite wet, so we had a bit of trouble getting our fire started. Annoying, but we finally got it going. And since Ben and Sam really didn't want their marshmallows getting hot or browned at all, just wanted to put them in the general direction of a flame and then eat them off the stick, it was fine.


Fearless Adventurers and Marshmallows


Once the logs actually caught fire a little

The only eventful thing about the night, besides a raccoon encounter was that it was cold. And in the morning it seems even colder. I let the boys keep their pajama shirts on because they were shivering in a sad way.

After breakfast and packing up, we went on another little walk to see some of the biggest redwood trees in the park. They are pretty impressive. The boys spent the whole time pretending to be carrying tiny, baby dragons around. I'm not sure why. I guess they figure this would be the kind of environment a dragon would live in.

Jumping the Fence to see the brook.


Nature Boys

It was awesome, despite being freezing. And to further drive that point home, I made a little video of the event. It's not loading here for some reason, so here is a link to it. Enjoy!