Took the family to Camp Bullfrog (about 30 minutes southwest of us) for an overnight. I’d really like to convert my family into a camping family (I love tent camping, personally); among other reasons, since Anand can’t get vaccinated until September, probably, camping is our best bet for getting him some travel / vacation time while still isolating from strangers.
The large cabin came with ten bunks, which is sort of goofy for four people, but we picked a large cabin because it had private bath and shower, also heat/AC (though the weather was actually perfect, and we didn’t end up using that). About $100 for a night; smaller cabins are less, and tent campsites even less.
All of us do like spending time in the woods, but I’m not sure how well my attempt to convert my family into a camping family is going to go — even though we rented a cabin, everyone slept really badly.
I’m not quite sure what to do about that — maybe if we hike more and get more tired out, we’ll sleep better? Though after a year of pandemic, there’s not so much hiking they can do before the kids start complaining of fatigue. Maybe just expect a really slow recovery from pandemic out-of-shapeness.
Maybe we should try two nights next time; I’m not sure — a little more laze around time might help us adapt? The kids still thought the trip was fun, but everyone basically came home and collapsed for most of the remaining day, and are still a little tired today. It doesn’t work so well to vacation if you then have to recover from your vacation…
Better bedding, maybe. We tried sleeping bags for the kids, and regular sheets and blankets for me and Kev, but the twin beds ended up with twin bedding that kept slipping off us in the night; we’re not used to not being able to sprawl all over. So at least for me, I woke up over and over and over again, and then finally woke up at 4 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep. Not ideal.
I might have actually slept better in a sleeping bag. I got a little inflatable sleeping pad to go under Anand’s sleeping bag, and he seemed to like it, so maybe more of those for the rest of us? I know some people get queen size air mattresses for camping, but every air mattress we’ve ever bought seems to spring a leak pretty quickly, so I’m suspicious of them. Maybe I’m not buying the right brand? I don’t know.
Camp sleeping tips welcome.
