Caleb and I decided to come back a day early from our camping drip due to the somewhat “wet” weather. It started raining during the middle of our first night, and kept up for pretty much all of the next day (yesterday). We checked in at the office yesterday morning to inquire about the weather and were told that the sky would clear up just after noon. Noon came and went, and we decided around 4pm that we had enough of the weather. We still had a great time and made the clip below early yesterday morning (around 6am) when Caleb finally woke up:

Truthfully, it was a pretty difficult camping trip, at least from my perspective. Camping is somewhat laborious anyway, but add into the mix a two or three year old boy, a huge dog, some rain, and endless mosquitoes, and I would think even the most seasoned camper (which I am not) would get a bit dissuaded.

Caleb seemed to have a fantastic time, especially on our first day (setting the tent up and hanging out before bed). The mosquitoes clearly bothered him but doses of bug spray at least helped keep them at bay. The rain was another story — Caleb very much wanted to go hiking on our second day (as did I), but every time we ventured out, it invariably started raining too hard to continue (sans good rain gear including waterproof hiking shoes).

Nadine had a really hard time though I think she really enjoyed hanging out in the tent with us. I had put flea/tick/etc. junk (Frontline) in her fur the day before our trip (which always tweaks her system a bit) but still ended up having to put bug spray on her to keep the mosquitoes off. I doused her collar and then put it back on her but then I found a bunch latching on to her stomach and the bridge of her nose (poor girl!). She also seemed to think that we were moving and more or less refused to eat (even carrots, one of her favorite treats). I kept finding her “burying” her food bowl (a stress-induced hoarding/rationing behavior — she would nuzzle her bowl with her nose into a corner of the tent as if to cover it with dirt) and she continued to refuse food until we returned to Boston last night.

Trips to the bathroom were also a bit of a challenge. I opted to bring Nadine as leaving her in the tent — to potentially tear it to shreds trying to chase a passing deer — was likely a poor option, and didn’t want to expose the car to more mosquitoes than necessary (three to four managed to always enter no matter how briefly the door was open). So the three of us piled into a stall (which was thankfully one of the cleanest bathrooms I have ever seen at a campground) and made do (umm… no pun, however slight, intended…).

For fun, which we managed to create/find/sustain despite the above, we hiked (per our several, though abbreviated and wet attempts), made fires (the second one was freakishly extinguished by the rain just 5 minutes later), skateboarded (well, Caleb did “tricks” while I watched), explored a bit, read stories in the tent, visited nearby Concord (about 30 minutes away — our morning adventure while waiting for the sky to clear up), and took a detour into the nearby Camping Museum (which was awesome!).

All in all, Caleb and I are ready to take another trip (Nadine not so much). The next time, we’ll hopefully have better weather, and will perhaps choose a climate not so mosquito friendly…