Well, so laughs Grandma and Grandpa after we told them about our trip to the Eastern Sierras over the July 4th weekend. This was truly more a misadventure than adventure. For the first time in my life, I lobbied to leave early, and to even skip a short day hike to a supposedly lovely alpine lake so that we can leave first thing in the morning. Pronto!
As it turns out, even after major upgrades - a much, much larger tent (see the giant 6 person car camping tent above, an air mattress for ourselves, and a lovely baby "PeaPod" for Zoe - baby still had a hard time sleeping outside of a crib environment. The first night was actually not too bad. Even though she took a long time to fall asleep, she didn't cry or fuss. In fact, she played and played. She even woke up in the middle of night to play. And even though she woke up crying at 3 in the morning, she was at least able to fall asleep in my arms. It was very sweet actually, seeing her so solaced simply by being held be me. The second day (Friday) was not so good. I think it was the accumulated fatigue. Zoe became more and more fussy as the day went. And as it was an immoderately hot day, we worried about the effects of the sun and heat on Zoe. We couldn't call it quits and simply return to camp to chill as we had a lousy exposed campsite and it would be worse to return than to be on the trail - at least till the late afternoon/early evening hours. All in all, it was not a good day, even though the lakes were beautiful and the landscape glorious (once we were in the shade). That night, baby was extremely difficult to put to sleep. She fussed, pleaded, and then cried when we put her into her pea pod to sleep. It was heartbreaking hearing her cry like that. Anyhow, to make a long story short (or shorter), it was probably one of the longest night we have ever experienced. Zoe woke up many, many times crying. She ended up sleeping with us on the air mattress. I'm not sure how much we slept in the end, we were just glad when morning came.
It wasn't all bad, of course. The first night (Thursday), Dennis built a nice fire and we had lovely dinner with wine in front of it. Then, we sat out for a long time just looking at the starlit sky. It was quite, quite wonderful and we talked about how camping is so nice! It was also nice to see Zoe's excitement at touching the water in a running brook, feeling a tree bark, and watching butterflies dance in the air (what surprise!). But alas, it might be awhile before we attempt to take her out like this. Perhaps the next time, instead of car camping, we can "base camp" at a hotel and then do day hikes instead.
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