Camping at Richardson Grove

We (randomly) decided to take a quick break and go camping overnight in the Redwoods. By random I really mean last minute. I think John informed me of his decision at about 8am, then spent the next 5 hours convincing me that it was a good idea, then we got on the road at 1pm.

It was actually a pretty quick drive. Once we got there, we set up camp to make dinner. Lincoln made himself at home in the camping chair.

Then we ate this:

You might recognize it from my previous post about fishing. We also made some chicken with roasted peppers. Not too made for impromptu dinner. As dinner was cooking, we got the tent set up. Lincoln tested out the sleeping bags.

We just recently acquired an eight person North Face tent off of craigslist (love it!). It can fit two queen size air mattresses in either end, with room for our luggage in between. It was super plush.

Time to enjoy the dinner!

Ethan is our little vegetarian, picking out all the roasted bell peppers.

Then we spent some time enjoying the rest of the fire while we waited for desert.

I don't think Ethan stopped running the entire time we were there. Well, except that time he ran smack into that tree. (It was dark and he was learning how to use a flashlight and he was pointing it directly at his feet. So he didn't even see that tree coming.) No worries though, he still loves the outdoors.

Is it me or do I kind of look like a zombie in this picture? Blink already!

Of course he did spend some time hugging trees and measuring them with his arm width.

Ahh. The cherry cobbler. Got a little crispy in the bottom unfortunately, but we plan on practicing and mastering the technique of dutch oven cooking. Not too bad for a first try.

The following morning we woke up, having slept through the entire night! I'm so grateful that I have good sleepers (and of course that the campsite was relatively peaceful).

We found a banana slug just outside our tent. That's Ethan's shoe for comparison. P.S. Ethan has huge feet -- he wears size 9! I think this thing was at least 4 inches long.

After a quick breakfast we decided to take a little exploratory stroll. We didn't do the whole bacon, sausage, egg, & pancake breakfast that I love to eat while camping. It's just not worth it for three hungry mouths. So we had some fruit and cereal bars. Next time we have a group together that will be a priority though. Someone in that campsite had bacon and I seriously considered sniffing them out and offering some cash for a few slices.

Ethan led the way, and did pretty well with letting us take our time.

Lincoln decided he wanted to turn around in the baby bjorn today. This was a first for him!

Here are them big trees.

I want to frame this one and put it in my office.

Ethan climbed up this tree all by himself.

This tree was massive!

But just seeing all the trees and walking among them was spectacular. I kept thinking of that road trip in college when we drove for a weekend to Eureka (a 16-hour drive) with 7 girls and 1 guy. Best road trip ever! Love all those girls -- you too Jimmy.

Ethan loved climbing all over those trees.

There was a river that ran alongside the trees and the water was cold, but totally manageable. I think if we were planning on staying the whole weekend, we definitely would have planned on swimming in that river. But until we have a whole weekend, skipping rocks and wading will have to suffice.

After our hike, we went back to camp and closed up shop. We loved having such a fun trip.

On kind of a sidenote, we've been working on potty-training and Ethan has done super well. On the way home though, we decided it would be easier to just put him in a diaper for the 4 1/2 hour car ride. On the way home, about an hour into the trip, he kept telling us he had pee pees. So we explained that he was wearing a diaper so he could use the diaper for his pee pees so we didn't have to stop every 30 minutes for a bathroom break. He would then tell us every 30 minutes or so that he needed the bathroom. When we got him home though his diaper was dry! Poor kid held it the whole drive because he didn't want to pee in his unders! At least he got some good practice holding it, right?