End-of-Summer Getaway

Early this summer, friends of ours invited us to go camping up in the wine country. Our first camping trip came about because of that invitation, since we didn't want to look like complete fools when we went with them.  We felt pretty good about how we handled things the first time, so we were ready when the day finally arrived to meet up with our friends and one other family.

Leading up to the weekend, Mike managed to get sick, so we weren't sure if he was going to join us. I planned on taking the kids no matter what, but he rallied for the trip and we all went up together.  The traffic going up was terrible, so it took us about an hour and a half longer to get there than we had planned.  We still had plenty of daylight, though, and got ourselves set up and settled without too much trouble.  Our friends were making dinner that night, so we were able to hang out and chat while they cooked and got things ready for all of us.

Between the three families, we had seven kids ranging in age from three to nine.  We were the only ones with girls, so there was quite the pack of wild boys running around the whole weekend.  Our son and one other boy brought toy light sabers (I have no idea why), so the main game for the entire weekend was a roving Star Wars battle.  Our campsites were just up the hill from the Russian River, so the kids spent a lot of time battling the forces of good and evil on the banks of the river.  We were all pretty relaxed about letting the big kids take off on their own as long as they let us know where they were going, so we didn't see much of them for most of the weekend.  They were thrilled to have that kind of freedom and took advantage of the opportunity.

We had a lovely dinner together and after cleaning up and waiting for the logs to burn down, everyone gathered around the fire for s'mores (mainly just the marshmallows, but there were some ingenious attempts at putting pieces of chocolate between the marshmallows and toasting the whole mess together).  Our kids finally collapsed into bed and immediately fell asleep, while we lingered a while longer around the campfire at our own site.  Mike and I were not as lucky with regards to sleep as the kids - our air mattress had a very slow leak and we ended up on the ground (and in pain) by morning, with very little sleep in between.

Saturday dawned gray and cold, but a hot breakfast and a nice shower perked me up at least.  We all moved pretty slowly that morning, so by the time we were cleaned up after breakfast, it was late morning and we still didn't have a specific plan for the rest of the day.  The kids, of course, took off on their own adventures, with a game of baseball and a scavenger hunt sandwiched in between their battles.  We realized that morning, as Mike was going through the cooler, that I had forgotten to get the ribs we were planning on making for dinner out of the freezer, so a trip to the grocery store had to happen at some point.  As all of the adults sat around chatting, we realized it didn't make any sense to pull the kids away from their fun to pack them back into the car, so we gave up on any plans for exploring the area and decided to stay at the campground.  The men all headed for the store and we moms eventually made our way down to the river to see what the kids were up to.

When the guys got back, Mike took our kids swimming in the river since the skies had finally cleared up and the air had warmed up a bit.  I did my darndest to try to find the leak in our mattress while they were gone, but had no luck.  It was our turn to make dinner, so while we got started on the cooking, one of the dads took their younger son on the hayride, which passed right by our campsites.  It was fun for the little guy to pass everyone and get to do something special while his big brother looked on.

We had a successful dinner and pulled out the s'more stuff for dessert once again.  One of the other moms also brought glow sticks, so the kids had a really fun time putting those together to make jumpropes, hoops, necklaces, and bracelets and they looked really cool as it got darker.  Our little one collapsed from exhaustion, so I put her to bed before dessert (she actually fell asleep in the car when I took her along to try to find cell service so I could check my voicemail and make sure there weren't any problems with the cats).  The other kids went to bed and we stayed up to do the dishes and put off the misery of sleeping on our mattress for as long as possible.

We did eventually go to bed and it was awful once again, but it meant we were up early and able to get a jump on packing up.  We had an easy breakfast of doughnuts and muffins and while we packed, the kids did their own thing.  There was a group of boys who arrived the day before and were riding around the sites on their bikes (Mike referred to them as a primordial biker gang) and our boys and theirs were having issues.  Our kids couldn't seem to understand that standing in the road and staring after them simply invited them to return and continue bugging our kids, so I finally had to tell our kids that the next time they interacted with the other boys in any way, they would all have to sit on the picnic benches until we were all ready to leave.  That convinced them to leave well enough alone and it was relatively peaceful until we left.

Since it was lunch time when we pulled out of the campground, we decided to stop at Korbel Winery and have lunch at their deli on the way out.  The food was really good and it was a lovely last destination for the trip.  We all said our goodbyes and headed for home from there, hoping to get back mid-afternoon and have time to unpack and relax since school was starting the next day.

No such luck.  We hit horrific traffic due to a wildfire and construction early on and then hit even worse traffic after crossing over the bridge.  In all, with a stop for lunch and two stops for the bathroom (one of which was in the scariest Walgreen's I've ever experienced), it took us six hours to get home, when it should have been just over two.  I made the kids a quick dinner, got them cleaned up, and put them to bed as early as possible.  I'm still trying to get through cleaning, sorting, and storing all the gear a week later.

Aside from the miserable trips up and back and the fact that there was only one bathroom in our part of the campground and it was about a quarter of a mile away (I swear I walked about a million miles over the course of the weekend!) and only had two toilets and two showers and a number of other negatives, we had a really good time.  It was a lot of fun to camp with these two families, the kids did really well together, and it was great to be able to just let the kids run around outside and do their own thing for long stretches of time.  We'd love to do it again - just somewhere else next time.