The Camping That Would Never Be

Our family loves to camp in the summer time. When Colin was just 18 months old, we purchased a tent trailer from the Seattle RV show and we've been camping in style ever since. Normally the three of us will venture out into the wilderness, or to the comfort of a well-equipped state park, about 3-4 times during the season. This year it was not meant to be.

During the winter I had made reservations for various spots at some primo campgrounds, first securing a place for Memorial Day weekend and second, a site at the always hard to get into Lake Chelan State Park. Everybody was psyched to go. We even bought a pet tent for our dog Lani in order for her to experience camping first hand. Lani loves to go camping with us, as she get so much fresh air and exercise. Even Lani would have her hopes dashed.

Our first disappointment came on the three-day holiday weekend when Matt's Grandma got sick and we had to ditch our plans to camp on Whidbey Island. Our next failed attempt at camping came when I realized I had made reservations for the same weekend a good friend from college was getting married. We cancelled our third trip to the great outdoors when we were told that Matt's Grandfather was dying. Finally, we were forced to bail out on camping up north when we learned my truck developed a rear differential problem making it unsafe to tow the trailer. Not sure why, but someone of authority did not want the Woodwards to go camping.

So, what do you do when life hands you lemons? You make sour lemonade! Sour, of course, because I'd be kidding myself if I thought life would freely hand me the needed sugar to make it sweet. Since we kept having problems syncing our schedules with every one's health and nuptials, we decided to bring the camping experience, not only to a weekday, but to somewhere close by and doesn't require advanced reservations - our backyard. Hey, it even has a lot of mosquitoes to make it feel more authentic.

Matt & Colin pitched our seldom used tent and we adults both took turns spending one night a piece with Colin, since the tent only sleeps two comfortably. I probably could have squeezed in, except that Miss Lani, weighing in at about 75 pounds, wanted a piece of the action. Fortunately the warm night made it quite nice to sleep outside and no one needed the usual outer layer to keep warm. I didn't even wake up at the crack of dawn as a usually do when camping, and even Colin slept in until 9am. Good times!