Mother-Daughter Camp Out

On the Friday before Mother's Day, the stake held a mother-daughter campout at Paradise Canyon – the same place where they held the father-son campout in October. Megan loved the one-on-one outdoors experience with me after feeling left out on the father-son campout in October. The place was actually kind of pathetic, just a long narrow dirt road with small camp sites (right next to the main road so you hear all the traffic) next to a little river butted up against a wall of sheer rocks. The pictures make it look prettier than it really was. There weren’t very many people I recognized, and none of Megan’s friends came. (Well, there were a couple, but those girls followed the older girls around and hung out in their little clique.) I was grateful I brought my watersocks (shoes) but the bottom of the “river” was rocky and slippery, most of which was too deep for Megan to stand in. But she was on top of the world anyway. She "helped" me set up the tent and we ate food I brought from McDonalds. (I was not about to try my hand at making a fire and cooking food she would never eat.) When the sun went down, the noise level went up and it had to have been the hottest night of the season (somewhere around 90 and humid in early May!) We tried to ignore the loud laughter and talking by singing along to the iPod and reading her storybook, but she was so tired and frustrated by 10pm (as was I) that when Megan asked to go home, I hunted down a gatekeeper to let us out (not an easy task -- it took me half an hour to find someone with keys). They’d made us move our cars from the campsite to a parking lot on the other side of the road. So I first had to get my car again and then I threw everything in the car without packing. Megan was such a good sport the whole time, and only cried a little while I left her in the tent in search of a gatekeeper. We got to sleep in our own beds by midnight. I had expected it to be miserable and was relieved to go home and actually get some sleep. Yeah, we chickened out in the end, but at least we gave it a shot. From now on, we’re only camping as a family and only in October/November and March/April when the weather is decent.