Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Tent camping with a 6 month old and a 2 1/2 year old!

We just got back from camping at Ricketts Glen.  It is one of the better car camping sites I've been to.  I would definitely go back again... 


My favorite part of the weekend was hiking the Falls Trail (see description below):



Falls Trail: 7.2 miles, difficult hiking



The full loop of this trail is 7.2 miles if hiking both the upper and lower sections. To see most of the waterfalls, a 3.2-mile loop can be taken by going on Highland Trail and the Glen Leigh and Ganoga Glen sides of the trail. The trails follow along 21 beautiful waterfalls ranging in heights from 11-feet to 94-feet. The scenery is well worth the effort, however, the terrain is rocky, can be slippery, and descends steeply on both the Ganoga and Glen Leigh sides. Hikers should take extra precautions with trail conditions, wear proper footwear, stay on the trail, and be in good physical condition.


I hiked it with my 6 month old in a baby bjorn.  Since we have the older model, it put quite a strain on my back.  The scenery on the hike was definitely worth it!  This is probably my second favorite hike in terms of scenic hikes.  My favorite was a trail we did in Kauai call the Hanakapi'ai Trail.


So my least favorite part of the weekend was the lack of sleep.  I'm not going to complain because I expected to get zero sleep.  I'm not really sleeping at home anyway because my 6 month old still wakes up every 3-4 hrs so I don't think there was much difference except that I was more stressed about her waking up my older daughter so couldn't really sleep in between her wakings.  Plus it was really cold at night and we didn't bring enough blankets!


Now, my older daughter had a night terror the second night she camped in the tent.  This is different from a nightmare in that she has no recollection of the event and is often inconsolable during.  These episodes can be triggered by stress or lack of sleep.  So hers was most likely triggered by lack of sleep.  Even though she had a fairly quiet first night camping in the tent, she woke up a couple of times at night and didn't sleep straight threw.  On top of that, she woke up about 2 hrs earlier than her usual wake time and had a shorter nap.  So in any case... I'm sure that was fun for all the other campers around us to hear.


So that was the third time camping for my older daughter.  We took her to Hickory Run when she was almost 8 months old, then did some camping by a beach last summer.  The funny thing is I probably forget every time how difficult it can be camping with children under two.  When I told my boss that I was camping, his comment was "After what happened last time?"  My response was, "what happened last time?"  Haha.  It's like pregnancy... I forget the challenging parts and only remember the good!