That could have gone better...

We started out with high hopes of a fun camping trip with Grandpa. We were headed to Pacific Beach to play in the sand and fly kites and eat camping food until we were sick of it. Good plan. Not so good in reality.

When we got to Pacific Beach, it was windy. Not just breezy, but windy. We took the kids down to the beach to play and Meg decided this was not where she wanted to be. It took her a couple of trips down there before she would even walk around on the sand.

Adam had fun though, chasing the seagulls and writing in the sand.

We decided to be brave and try and set the tent up, just as it started raining a little. As it turns out, you can't set up a 5 man tent in 40 mph winds and not expect some damage. The first cracking sound made me jump, the second made me look. Both main tent polls had cracked. By this time the rain was serious and the wind had picked up. I go to the office and low and behold, there was one room left for the night in the motel portion of the "resort". Sold. We spent our first night camping in a hotel room watching Baby Signing Times trying to keep the baby from screaming. We also ate dinner at the hotel restaurant. Not exactly the plan.

The second day we figure we can pull it together. Grandpa's one of the smartest guys I know and he can fix anything, so he pulled out the duct tape and got the tent poles back together again. We headed north and ended up in a remote campground called North Forks on Quinalt Lake.

We got out of the truck and looked around a while and that's when the feast began. Not the feast I had planned, but the feast for the mosquitoes. I thought they were going to carry the baby away. Could I find the bug spray anywhere? Nope, must have forgotten that. The good thing about the fact that it it started raining again just as we were trying to set the tent up, is that the mosquitoes went away. We managed to get it set up, get the truck unloaded and tried to light a fire. Grandpa again relied on his ingenuity and used diesel fuel to get lots of white smoke, but no fire. (Don't try that at home, kids.) I tried the Coleman stove and couldn't even keep that going long enough to heat up lunch. We had lukewarm lunch and everyone started to get a little cranky.

After spending just 4 hours and everyone getting soaked to the bone, we decided to pack up and head for home. Meg was so sad and so wet, I decided to stow her away in the truck while we broke camp. She found the open bag of cereal and happily munched away while we continued to get soaked and re-pack the truck.
On the ride home both kids were exhausted, so were the grown ups for that matter. I looked in the backseat and saw both kids in dreamland. I hope they were dreaming of a fun camp out in the sun with no mosquitoes and no rain.