First Time Camping

Camping with 'little"

I’d like to start this story from the end and move backwards a bit. On Saturday, when we had arrived home, and ‘little’ was utterly exhausted and taking a nap on my couch, I was setting up the tent in my backyard to clean it from our night of camping. My neighbor came out and hollered at me, “ … a little backyard camping, eh?” It really made me think. This may sound a little confusing, but if I had to do it again, and I didn’t know how absolutely awesome ‘little’ would be over the trip as a trooper and legit camper, I would have set up shop in the backyard rather than headed to Wild River State Park in North Branch area.

That being said, let me start at the beginning. The only REAL camping that I do is up in the Boundary Waters where I need to park, canoe in a few days and canoe back out. I’ve been to a few state parks (William O’Brien, Interstate and Lake Maria), and every time I’ve camped, the campsite is LITERALLY right next to my car. I park, get out and set up shop in a few minutes. Really not that big of a deal. I just sort of figured every state park was like that since that was my experience … ha! ha! Not the case in this instance. When I went to reserve our camp site, the few that I had been to and was familiar with were full, so I picked the next closest one. Turns out that the site we had reserved was at least a two-mile hike from where we were able to park, and it wasn’t anywhere near water, which we were sort of banking on.

Now, ‘little’ really had no expectations about this experience. All he knew was that we were going camping, which he had never done before, that I spoke really highly of camping, and that it was one of my favorite things to do. Since I thought we were going to roll right out of our car and plop our tent down, I didn’t pack appropriately for a two-mile hike with a 12-year-old and all the necessary equipment. When we learned of our situation, we had to re-tool all of our gear and only take in what we needed. I have no issue hiking, but I knew it would be a distance. I didn’t think ‘little’ would have an issue, but I was nervous. After the fact, I really can’t speak highly enough of how well he handled himself. He didn’t complain one bit, whereas most people would. We took several breaks when he got too tired, but every time, he was ready and raring to go when we got back up.

Once we found our site, he helped with everything we did. Setting up the tent, foraging for good firewood, getting a fire ready to burn at night … all things he had never had the opportunity to try before. He approached every new task as a learning experience and wanted to be involved intimately. He pointed out every animal we saw on our walk back to the river area (2.5 miles) and wanted to know what sort they were and everything about them. Like every self-respecting man, I had to make a TON of stuff up … ha! ha!

By the time we started to make our way back to our site for dinner, the sun had set, and the foliage was thick enough that it was pretty dark. I rarely take into account that he’s 12 – not that I treat him as a peer, but his age isn’t something that I think about – until he acts his age. He got pretty scared on the way back. He wasn’t sure what “mean animals” could potentially be in the forest, so he questioned almost every noise. If I started a conversation about something that he was interested in, he would forget about being scared and enjoy himself and our walk, but he would quickly snap back when we were done chatting. One of the most amazing things happened half-way back, though. As we were walking, he made sure to keep close by my side, close enough where he kept cutting me off as we were walking. All of a sudden, he grabbed my hand and held it for the last 15 minutes of our hike. I felt bad that I had put him in a scary situation, but it really was an amazing bonding time. He wasn’t so terrified that he wanted to leave; he just wanted to be by my side. When we made it back to the camp site, the flash light needed to be on the whole time, and I couldn’t walk too far away. Once again, though, when we had a task (lighting the fire and tending to it, cooking the food over the fire, and chopping some more wood) he was completely fine. It was an amazing time with him and brought our relationship to a whole new level. A few times, just to be sure, I asked him if he wanted to take off and head for the hills. He would have none of it. Such a trooper.

He really couldn’t get enough of preparing the camp site, cutting wood (probably his favorite part), starting and tending the fire. I’m so glad he was enjoying himself. For dinner, we cooked up some delicious pork chops and grilled potatoes. We ate it in fine guy fashion … no separate dishes, all thrown together and slurped down, juice rolling off of our chins. It was amazing and delicious.

Delicious!

We both crashed pretty hard in the tent. We had a quick conversation about the day and how it went. I was happy to hear he enjoyed himself, but he couldn’t make it through recounting the whole day before he crashed. It ended up raining pretty hard that night, and we woke up to a very healthy thunderstorm around 3:00 or so. He wasn’t scared at this point but, instead, was more in awe and curious. These times always make me appreciate teaching people new things and sharing my joys with them! We woke up at 5:50 … check that, ‘little’ woke up at 5:50 a.m. for real and made sure he got me up as well. Ha! Ha! I was really bummed that everything was drenched in the morning because one of the best parts of camping is the food, and we had a great breakfast of bacon, eggs, hash browns, hot chocolate and coffee planned. Alas, with the massive amounts of water EVERYWHERE, it wasn’t possible light a fire, so we took off. Turned out to be the right amount of time at the right camp site with the right ‘little’ on the right day. We had a great time.

When I got back, someone asked me what I had learned from the experience … interesting question, I thought. My answer: I’m so glad that I didn’t limit ‘little’ to what I thought he could do. He far surpassed my expectations and really inspired me with his determination. What a great kid!