After dropping Jeff off at the
airport for his conference, I spent the rest of Wednesday listing and packing
and piling up our camping gear. It was a big job. It was a big pile. I nearly
cancelled the whole trip when Jay woke up on Thursday with a 101 degree fever.
But after observing and questioning him thoroughly, I decided that since he had
zero other symptoms, we would press forwards anyways. Jay was going to be limp
and miserable whether he laid on the couch at home or in the back seat of the
car, I figured, so we may as well drive to the beach and have some fun! It felt
like a risky decision to go camping with one sick kid who may share his germs
with the rest of us, but I really did not want to stay home without Jeff for
three days, and I really wanted to go to the beach. So it was full steam ahead.
On Thursday morning, I gathered
enough food and snacks for three days and then loaded all of the food, gear,
backpacks, etc. into the van. Good news: it fit–barely. Jay and Rose had to hold
the pillows in place on top of the heap from inside the van while I quickly
slammed the trunk shut. Double checking that everyone had shoes on the outside
and empty bladders on the inside, we began our drive. It was 10:30am–not too
shabby for a solo packing job!
Ocean City State Park is located
on the southwestern coast of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. It is a five hour
drive from our house, through White Pass on beautiful Highway 12, with minimal
drive time on the dread Interstate 5 before veering off onto calmer roads
again. We listened to Harry Potter on audiobook the whole time, finishing book
1 and starting book 2.
The first order of business when
we arrived and checked into our campsite was to set up the tent. I have set up
many tents in my day, but never our big 6-man family size tent. Jeff always
takes over that operation, and I merely assist him with the poles. Thankfully I
managed to get the tent upright with relative ease, and stretched the rain fly
nice and tight with only a few minor setbacks. Rose and Amber were willing
helpers–Amber loved holding the bag of stakes, jingling them around, and
handing them to me when I asked her. Rose learned about bungee corded tent
poles and tarp alignment. Jay laid in the van with his fever. After about 45 minutes,
we had the tent up and we decided to get some coals going to cook an early
dinner.
A word about camping, aka the
interesting practical details that always seem to be left out: this trip was
not about exercising our wilderness survival skills. It was about going to the
beach! I parked our van as close to the tent as possible–not hard at all since
our “economy” sized campsite barely had room for a tent and a car wedged next
to the picnic table and fire pit. I brought charcoal and lighter fluid to cook
hot dogs for the kids. I brought chicken and salad (all pre-assembled) for my
own dinner. I planned on going out to eat at least once a day in nearby Ocean
City. Basically, I did everything I could to make this solo-parent camping gig
as easy as possible. The kids ended up begging to cook hot dogs and
marshmallows for dinner both nights, so we did not end up going out to eat
ever, but it was fine because we had plenty of hot dogs for them and I brought
extra helpings of chicken and salad for myself (that yummy craisin poppyseed
kale salad from Costco, with a heap of shredded rotisserie chicken on top).
Bonus: my tummy felt the best it ever has while camping, since I did not eat
any hot dogs. We did milk and cereal for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch. It
was all quite simple and straightforward.
I gave Jay some ibuprofen at
dinner and he perked up to nearly his usual self within 20 minutes, so we
decided to walk down to check out the beach. The beach was farther from our
campsite than we thought, so the walk was a bit long, but when we finally
arrived, we were all slightly giddy with the excitement and novelty of it. The
sand stretched wide and the ocean’s soothing whooshing waves rhythmically
rushed in and out. After a brief stop to dig joyfully in the sand, we ran for
the water and frolicked. Pacific Northwest beaches are more sand than sun, and
the water was freezing, but we were at the beach! It was a heady feeling of
freedom.
After a few (2-ish) hours of
beach-ing, wherein Amber ran about three miles (and also tripped and fell in
the water, soaking her clothes), we made our way back to the tent, tired,
happy, and full to the brim of that fresh briny breeze. I ended up giving Amber
a makeshift water bottle bath behind the van because she had sand everywhere,
but we were all toothbrushed, jammified, and sunggled into the tent by 8pm.
Rose fell asleep almost instantly. Amber wiggled around for nearly an hour
before settling in, and Jay read and chatted with me until he too dropped off
to sleep. I was too tired to change into my pajamas, so I slept in my clothes.
Photo captions:
- Starting the drive (that’s Jay’s hand waving from the back)
- TENT SETUP with two little helpers takes patience and precision. And patience.
- Amber packed her own backpack with the necessities: three princess dresses and three princess barbies. She came out of the tent wearing all three dresses on top of each other. Snow White returned to the forest. (The flapping pieces of the tent’s rain fly would not be staked–the ground was too rocky and the stakes would not go deep enough to hold those flaps out. Thankfully they were nonessential to the overall waterproofing of the tent–more of a porch than anything.)
- Roasting marshmallows after dinner on our sad little heap of charcoal. I love campfires, but charcoal is the way to go if you want fast, easy, even cooking.
- Amber hit the sand running and it was a challenge keeping up with her. I imposed a “don’t go in past your waist” rule with the ocean, but thankfully it was so cold nobody was tempted or complained.
- I love it when the wet sand is reflective. There was this weird bubbly greenish sea scum washing up in the surf. Amber enjoyed jumping on the bubbles to pop them.
- Thankfully Amber is uncharacteristically cautious around water. I mean, she still RAN and jumped and made me slightly nervous, but she didn’t try to swim to Hawaii or anything.
- I have about a hundred darling Ambeach pictures. It was so hard picking just a dozen or so to share!
- Looking east (away from the ocean), it was all blue skies and bright sunshine in the face.
- Running on sunshine: looking west (towards the ocean and the setting sun), the camera picked up silhouettes and sparkles. There was a new beautiful view at every single one of the 360 degrees around us.
- Both feet in the air above the sparkly sun-path.
- This picture feels lonesome, yet beautiful, symbolic, and thought-provoking all at once, with the darkness behind her and the footprints in the sand and the light up ahead.
- Rose was either too cold, too tired, or coming down with a mild version of Jay’s sickness, because she didn’t join in the frolicking much. Instead she watched with her intense Rose-gaze.
- After a short while of watching Amber’s fun, Jay removed his jacket and joined in. They ran this way…
- …they ran that way.
- …then back and forth, over and over.
- (no, Jay is not glowing. That’s just a clumsy photo-edit. I tried to lighten the shadow on him and went a wee bit too far. I crank all of my pictures through Adobe Lightroom to shrink their size for ease of uploading, and I can’t resist lightening/tweaking the dark ones. With the 500 or so pictures I took at the beach, however, my image touch-ups grew haphazard and inattentive.)
- Amber and Jay are definitely water babies. They love it, and I could live off of their unaffected beach joy for months.
- This beach had such a wide swath of packed sand that cars were allowed to drive on it. I didn’t particularly like having random cars parked on the beach or speeding past us, but the traffic was relatively low and drivers were mostly cautious and considerate.
- That running form! So much forward momentum.
- Rose turned our bucket over and sat on it, placidly observing her family’s antics in the waves.
- Mandatory beach selfie!
- Jay was feeling very zen about the beach.
- Pausing at the edge of the sand to retrieve our shoes. That warm setting sunlight was glorious. I wanted to stay and watch it set, but I was worried about already-tired kids walking that long walk back to the tent, so we left while we still had a little spring in our steps.
- Walking back to the campsite (note Amby’s dirty sandy wet clothes)
- Rose fell asleep before I could get our traditional tent selfie.
- Thus ended DAY ONE of our mother-kid beach camping extravaganza. (two more days to go!)
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