Our First Camping Experience

On our first camp outing the rain didn’t stop falling all day until 7 pm.

We weren’t going to let that stop us though, so we loaded the Jeep between the lulls, and got ready to go that morning. When we were all loaded in the Jeep, and as I was about to back out of the driveway, I realized I had forgotten to strap our chairs to the spare tire. Of course the rain just happened to be falling down quite hard at the moment. We needed chairs, so I jumped out, and asked Meghan to hold an umbrella over my head as I got the Rok Straps on the spare tire and mounted the chairs. I had to question the use of the umbrella, though, because when I was done, Meghan and I were both pretty much soaking wet. With the chairs in place, and everything, and everyone in the Jeep, we headed out in the rain to our camping spot. Rain wasn’t going to slow us down, that’s for sure, although, we did take our time getting to our destination. Our hope was that the rain would have stopped by the time we made it to camp.

It didn’t.

We wanted to camp somewhere familiar, because we are not yet ready for a full-on remote camping excursion. We chose Fort Flagler in Washington because the park is in a good location, and it has a good amount of hiking/biking trails, and plenty of room to do other camping activities like play Frisbee, kayaking, and so forth. We stayed for 2 nights (Saturday-Monday) on Memorial Day weekend 2019, so we had one real full day at the park, which is fine because we didn’t know how it was going to be, and we didn’t want to push things too far.

So how did we prepare for camping? We made a small list of things we should have and watched some videos. The videos helped because most of them point out what worked and didn’t work, and they gave some pointers based on their experiences. We still need a few things, so the day before we were going to camp we visited REI, and bought the last few things we needed. And what did we need? One sleeping bag, air mattresses (we got two: one for Kaitlyn and one for Meghan and I), lanterns, which we actually didn’t use much because Meghan picked out a small string of lights (Camping Light by Revel Gear) that we hung inside the tent which worked great, and a propane stove. I almost forgot about one thing we weren’t planning on getting, which when Meghan saw she thought it would be a good addition to our camping gear: The Camp Chef Sherpa Table & Organizer.

The beds we got were the REI Camp Dreamer Double Self-Inflating Deluxe Bed, and we get the smaller XL size bed for Kaitlyn. These beds worked great and they used the pillow as a inflater/deflater. One thing I may change is perhaps we would get an XL bed for each of us, but as of right now this setup works well. We got a Wenzel Sunwarm sleeping bag, and an Eureka! Ignite Plus 2-burner camp stove. The Eureka! stove worked wonderfully. It’s relatively light, and if you take the legs off, you can store the stove with the rest of your gear really easy. The lanterns were the Nite Ize Radiant 400. They were good, but Meghan thought their light was a little harsh. The Camp Chef table turned out to be a great addition, but I have one concern, since it doesn’t fold up it does take up a lot of room in the Jeep, but with the addition of the roof rack it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

Once we had all the gear we wanted to take with us it was time to pack it all into the Jeep. We had no roof rack for this trip, so it was a challenge putting everything inside the Jeep. Thanks to my extensive knowledge and time spent on Tetris I was able to somehow cram everything into the Jeep, guitar included. Thankfully Kaitlyn was a good sport about having to share her seat with our two Chihuahuas, and with not having any real room in the back.

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Once we got to the camp setting up the Gazelle T4 Plus Hub tent was pretty easy and straight forward. It helped that we had practiced how to set it up a few days before in our backyard. The beds, cooler, Camp Chef, and clothes bin were placed in the tent with no problems, other than the rain, but at least it wasn’t raining too hard while we were setting up. After everything was pretty much in place we used the fire pit to heat up some charcoal to make burgers and hot dogs. We relaxed for a bit and then went to bed.

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The next day Meghan made some great breakfast as we waited for our friends to join us for the day. We had a great time going on a walk, playing Bocce Ball, eating some great gumbo made by Meghan, and sitting around the camp fire chatting and eating S’mores. For the last day, I took my turn making breakfast while Meghan and Kaitlyn relaxed on hammocks and read. It was a nice clear day, and good way to start our last day there.

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After we finished breakfast we hung out for a bit more, and then started to pack up. Packing up camp wasn’t too bad, and things went back into the Jeep pretty much the same way as before. On the way home Kaitlyn fell asleep, and after we made it to the house and we unpacked everything, I too had a nice nap too. It was a long weekend! Overall I would call our first camping trip a success. This was something we needed to get under our belts before going to Northwest Overland Rally in the end June.