FamilyCampman

I write this post with a great amount of frustration. The weather has decided to work  against my trip and has brought in severe thunderstorms. Normally,  I’d fight it out but since it is my son’s first  camping trip my wife and I decided to postpone the trip than risk having his first camping experience be one where he sat scared in a tent all day.  My car is still packed and I’ve yet to stop swearing about it, much to my wife’s chagrin.  We’ve pushed the trip out for two weeks and will try again then.

Stay tuned.

Oh boy, I just have one week to go and I’ve slacked on my preparation. I still need a cooler along with a whole bunch of random items. I have my grocery list pretty much in order so come later this week, I’ll have to go on a shopping run.

I don’t  think I’ve been this excited for a whole 2 night trip ever.  My son is looking forward to it as well.  My biggest fear at this point is the weather.  Rain would definitely not help my chances of getting my wife out there with me and could ruin it for my son. I’ve purchased a couple of tarps (rope is still on the list of things to buy) to protect us if it rains.  Board games are also ready to help keep us occupied.

I can smell the campfire already and can’t wait to sink my teeth into a s’more.

Alright, gotta run.. Chat with ya later.

Eric

Holy crow! We are just three weeks away from the trip. This past month, I’ve been overwhelmed with additional responsibilities at my job along with wiping out some grubs that ravaged my backyard so I haven’t have much chance to think about preparing for the camping trip.  I have however told my 6 year old son who’s just as excited as I am. It will be he his first camping trip and one that I sure hope he remembers.

As I get older I reflect back on what camping meant to me when I was a kid. It was a time where you could just have fun outdoors. Sleeping in a sleeping bag was cool and riding your bike through the campground gave such a great feeling of independence. On on trip I remember watching my proud dad struggle to put up an old Coleman cabin tent at night by flashlight. We went camping quite a bit but for some reason time management was never his strength. It was funny then and it’s equally funny now almost 25 years later. My father passed away 22 years ago and I hope that I can make him proud with this simple two day camping trip.  This trip represents a lot to me, but my first goal is to make sure that my son just has fun.  If I’m lucky he too will grow to have a love of camping so he can do the same  when he has kids himself. My second goal is to convince my wife who suffers from insomnia and a fear of bugs to come out with us in the future.  Something tells me that the latter will be the far more difficult task.

Well everyone, I’m off to the store. I got some supplies to purchase.

Alright, the sleeping bags have been purchased.

I got my son a 25 degree rated Coleman Explorer. It looks pretty cool and has glow in the dark constellations that he’ll be excited about. Proudly purchased at http://amazon.com. If all online stores provide the great service that Amazon does, I’ll never go to a mall again. Well, I cannot stand the mall already so that’s not that big of a stretch.

I purchased mine at Dick’s Sporting Goods. My requirements weren’t that much actually. It just needed to be rated around 20 to 30 degrees and be less than $42. The amount was actually based on the cash collected from returning my gigantic amount of soda cans (primarily diet mt. dew). I found the Coleman Exponent Grey Fox. It’s rated at 20 degrees and amazingly enough it cost me $41.99. In my world that’s the equivalent of destiny.

I also picked up a couple of tarps. The first will be used to provide coverage for the rain, while the second will be ground cover for the tent.

Next on the list is a cooler and some folding chairs. I have a smaller size cooler but need one with wheels.

The date of the trip is June 30th and I’m counting down the days….

The decision and reservation has been made. I’ve chosen the place where the trip is going to be. It’s a small campground called Walker Island Family Campground located in the Berkshires. Based on their Web site, it seems to be a perfect blend of traditional family camping and resort. It has plenty of fishing with small streams weaving in and out, but also has heated swimming pools , hiking and biking paths. I’ve chosen a site that’s seclude - no electricity/water and right on a stream. No wussy camping here. We plan on doing it old school. I am hoping it meets my expectations.

I’ve purchased my tent. After looking around for a good deal, I ended up getting the Coleman Red Canyon from Amazon. It ran me about $80, but from what I can tell it should suit my family’s needs. It’s roomy enough for the 4 of us, including the baby’s travel bed and is made by Coleman which was the brand that I knew growing up.

Is it the best tent I could have gotten? I have no idea. In fact the entire experience has my head spinning in amazement at just how complex the gear shopping process has become. The gear shopping landscape has changed since I was a kid. For example, I recently picked up a copy of Backpacker magazine and quickly realized that the gear reviewed in this magazine was beyond my family’s needs at this point in time. Give me a year or two and I’ll probably have a more seasoned approach to buying gear but for now it’s going to be based on just simple needs and an affordable price

Hi everyone and welcome to the familycampman.com first post. The goal of this site is document one man’s return to the outdoors world and his quest to get this family involved.

Today is Sunday, March 30th, 2008 and yesterday was a big day. It proved to be a step backward in my attempts to get my not-so-outdoorzy wife to go on the camping trip in July. She had been hinting that she wasn’t interested but yesterday flat out said she wasn’t going. Well, I can roll with that. It’ll just be me and my 6 year old who it’ll be his first trip so I plan on making it a great father-son bonding experience. Hopefully it’ll be the first of many and my wife will join in somewhere down the road.

So now I have to gear up for two. I’m in the market for the following

• Backpack
• Air mattress
• Flashlights (2)
• Cooler w/wheels
• and much more

One thing you’ll learn about me is that I’m cheap so everything on this checklist should be affordable. I don’t want it to fall apart but I’m not looking for top of the line stuff either. So far I’ve purchased all Coleman gear from Amazon (free shipping!).

Well that’s it for now. I have to go and do some further tweaks to this site so it doesn’t look to awful.