First Camping Trip

This past weekend we embarked on our first family camping trip, and it was definitely a success.  All three of us had a blast.  It was a great way to celebrate the end of James' first year.

We left Friday morning around 8:30 and arrived at Indiana Dunes right around 10.  We grabbed a campsite right away (no reservations were accepted, so it was first-come first-served), set up camp, and let Jesse get in a nap before we headed out to do a little hiking.

The first trail took us past several historic sites: the farmhouse of a Swedish immigrant family and the Bailly Homestead, which was a former fur trading post.

Jesse warmed up to the hiking carrier eventually, but he didn't much like it at the beginning.  He kept saying "walk, walk".  By "walk, walk", he meant that he wanted to get down and walk, but he also didn't like it when James stopped walking for much longer than a few seconds.

Jesse seemed to have an instant love for camping and the outdoors.  Within five seconds of getting out of our car he was running into the woods and exploring.  

He also really loved playing inside the tent.  James just got this tent for his birthday, and it is gigantic!  It has a big, tall open area in the middle, and then two rooms on either end.  This worked out wonderfully, because it allowed us to put Jesse to bed at his normal time in the pack and play and not worry about waking him up going in and out of the tent before bed.  He slept like a champ at night, and even slept later than usual both mornings.

Jesse and James wrestling before bed on Friday night:

I think he was trying to say something like "I just love camping, you guys!".

On Saturday morning we got up and did a more ambitious hike, the Cowles Bog Trail.  It wasn't too terribly challenging, but it did involve climbing some large sand dunes, which is tiring work.  We saw lots of beautiful wildflowers, some heron, lots of swampy areas, and the beach.

This was a really steep descent.  These pictures don't do it justice!

The ironic thing about all this natural beauty is the many, many factories and steel mills and power plants in this region.  The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore is broken up at different points by various plants like these.

We had a very tired Jesse near the end of this hike.  He took a short snooze on James' back but then woke up when we put him in his car seat, which meant he didn't fall asleep at nap time.

We headed back to the campsite for lunch, which was leftover Jalupees (a Covington-family camping tradition...basically tortilla chips, a mixture of ground beef, beans, tomato sauce and chili powder, and whatever toppings you want).  Jesse is a huge fan!

Then after a failed attempt at a nap, we got our beach gear out and headed to the lake.  The weather was perfect (a little hot, even) and the cold water felt very refreshing.  Jesse enjoyed getting his feet wet and sitting on the shore where he could feel the waves come in, but he actually seemed quite a bit more apprehensive about the water than he has in previous visits to the lake.

I always try to get him to wear a hat when we're out in the sun for long periods of time, but he immediately yanks it off.  This time the hat lasted for maybe 5 minutes, but only because he had a rock in each hand and was too distracted to notice at first.

Jesse enjoyed pointing out lots of things on the beach: the birds, balls, water, and the beach itself.  I think he was pointing at a bird in this picture.

As you can tell, he is not a huge fan of posing for pictures.  Maybe he was ashamed of the new hair-do his Dad gave him.

The sun eventually wore this little guy out.  He instantly fell asleep when we got in the car to drive back to our campsite.  I knew he must have been exhausted after only 10 minutes of a nap that day, so we caved in and let him snooze a little while longer in the car while we got dinner ready.  That was a bad idea, because he had lots of trouble going to sleep that night and was up 2 hours past his normal bedtime.

Waking up from such a deep sleep is hard to do.

But everything gets better when you get to eat hot dogs.  He wasn't going to miss out on that.

And of course he had lots of fun roaming around after dinner.  He was pretty hyper, actually.

Sunday morning we packed up camp and hiked one last trail, the Inland Marsh Trail.  

Then we got back in the car and stopped at a scenic overlook for some lunch.

We can't wait to go on another family camping adventure!