Oh this camping trip turned out to be quite the experience. Matt and I decided to get out of town and take the kids camping. I must preface this by saying we have "NEVER" taken the kids camping. We weren't quite sure what we were in for but thought we would go on a little adventure. We were going to go to Sedona and camp at Slide Rock but luckily before we left I called and they said you have to make reservations months in advance. Plan B go to Prescott and find a campground to camp at. I was pretty set on camping at a designated camp site and not on the disperesed camping sites (in the middle of the forest). We drove up to Prescott Friday afternoon and we decided to go to Lynx Lake but when we got there the campsite was full. The campground host handed us a map and said but there are lots of disperesed camping sites :-)
We decided to take a short cut up a mountain to the next campground and skip the disperesed camping sites. We started up the mountain, stopped and asked someone if it would get us where we wanted to go and they said yes. We drove for a long time up a mountain, winding down roads, passing fun cabins, but it was getting late. It was already 5:30pm and the kids were getting hungry. We started back down the mountain and started seeing dispersed camping sites. Since it was so late and they were the nearest places to camp we pulled into one and decided to camp there. I was a little nervouse because there weren't any other campers around and we were really going to be roughing it. I had a imagined tents and campfire for our first trip but also the convenience of bathrooms on the campground and other campers close by. Matt reassured me that everything would be fine so we all jumped out of the car. We stepped about 20 steps out of the car and Matt and I both look down and see a deer leg. I quickly distracted the kids and Matt picked it up and got rid of it. We both looked at each other and laughed wondering whose stomach the rest of that deer was in.
We settled into camp setting up the tent, starting a fire, and quickly roasting hot dogs and feeding the kids. We sat around the camp fire roasted some marshmallows for smores and ate our gooey dessert. It got late quick and at about 9pm I told Matt we should probably head into the tent to get the kids aquainted with the tent so they would hopefully feel comfortable and fall asleep. We all got in the tent and put layers of jammies on because it was supposed to drop to the 50's at night. We bundled everyone up figured out our sleeping arrangements and got the kids snug in bed. Matt and I decided we should probably put the cooler of food back in the van in case the hungry deer eating animal came to our camp site looking for food. Matt got out of the tent and was putting the cooler in the van when suddenly I heard a car pull into our camp site. I heard a woman talking to Matt but couldn't quite make out what was being said. I decided to put some shoes on to see what was going on. I looked out the tent and saw another minivan parking and unloading about 15 feet from our tent? Matt was helping this woman put up a tent so I climbed out to see what was going on. He didn't say much to me just help her put up her tent. She introduced herself saying that she decided to take her two kids camping they got lost and it got late and we were the first people they saw so they were gonna stay the night and would leave in the morning. I went back to the tent to get the kids to bed while Matt continued to help the woman.
Matt came back to the tent and I looked out to see this woman and her two children sitting in our camping chairs around the fire. I made sure that Matt had told her that she was responsible for the fire and we headed to bed. The kids had a very restless night of sleep. They were cold, unsure of their surroundings and scared. I turned some music on from my phone and we finally fell asleep for a couple hours. Well at 4:40am when the sun started to peak up the kids were up. We heard the other family up and I started to look out the tent and saw the boy wrapping toilet paper around a bush in the middle of camp? What on earth was he doing? We decided to bundle up because it was really windy and head out to the campfire. We went out and the woman and her two kids were sitting comfortably in our chairs and were not very eager to get out of them. After we stood there for a minute she instructed her son to go get their chairs out of their car.
We all sat around the campfire and froze. We brought donuts and were going to make bacon and eggs for breakfast. We offered the whole crew donuts and were anxiously awaiting the sun to come up over the mountain and provide warmth for all of us. The woman had a little girl that was Avery's age and so they started to play. I headed back to the tent with Madyx to try and get him to sleep more. Shortly after laying down in the tent Avery came to tell me she was gonna go hiking with this woman....No way no how was I gonna let her go. We had no idea who this woman was. I told Ave I didnt want her to go and the woman and her two kids hiked off. Madyx wouldnt lay back down so we went back out and let the kids play. They were having a blast and dirt was everywhere just what every kids loves, right!
Soon the woman reappeared and it became apparent that she had no intentions of finding another campsite. We let the kids play and I wanted to read my book and just hang by the fire but the woman wouldn't let me and just kept talking. They were odd! Matt and I decided to take the kids for a little walk/hike. We locked valuables up in the van and walked down a road and found some great little campsites. I really wanted to move our stuff but Matt wasn't too eager to take everything down and set it all back up again. We walked for awhile and then came back to the campsite and excitedly told the woman about all the campsites just down the road and she said "we are not moving." I was a little annoyed but just thought oh well! Then it was time for lunch and her children were hungry and she didn't have much food for them. We brought lots of fruit and her little girl devoured it. She proceeded to tell us that she doesn't buy her kids fruit and vegetables.
After lunch I headed back to the tent to try to get Madyx to nap again. At this point it was warm again because it was midday and the sun was shining bright. Madyx fell right to sleep and I stayed in the tent with him to read and relax. Soon after I looked out the tent and the woman was packing up and leaving. I went out to see what was going on and Matt said he had no idea she just walked away and started taking down her tent. She took it all down packed up and left? Strange! In retrospect Matt and I thought the whole scenario was a little strange. We had planned on staying another night but it got really windy and our tent was being pulled out of the ground so we packed up and headed out. We walked around camp to clean everything up. The bush that the boy had wrapped in toilet paper in the middle of camp had a very large human poo under it....Icing on the cake!
The kids were fast asleep all the way home and Matt and laughed about our strange first camping adventure with the kids!
