Comfort Camping - Sundance Lodges

So, this weekend past, Tom and I decided to try our hand at camping. We were never big campers before kids, with the exception of our multi-day backpacking hikes. But the camping for those hikes was out of necessity for the hike, not really for the love of camping. However, we both feel that camping is an important experience for kids, and we figured we'd take some of the complication out of it by booking ourselves a tipi!

A tipi in July! That'll be fun! ... Right?

Yeah... Not exactly. 

First of all, there was a lot of rain. And I neglected to bring rain boots or rain pants for our kids, which would have solved a lot of our problems. The forecast had seemed like it wasn't going to be too bad, but the weather was changeable. I should have known to bring something for all weather!

Second of all, Scarlett wakes up at 5:00am EVERY. DAY. And this is fine when we're at home, and one of us can scoop her up and take her down to the basement so everyone else in the house can continue sleeping. But when you're in a tipi at 5:00am, everyone is awake. And when everyone is awake (I'm looking at you, Lacey), some people are giant sleep deprived monsters.

On the other hand, Scarlett was loving life!

Thirdly, kids under four years old don't really like hiking. Us adults might like hiking. But hiking while carrying all of the kids? Not really my cup of tea. Nevertheless, we made it up the "family friendly" Troll Falls Hike.

Finally, it was really freaking cold at night. There was a kerosene heater inside the tipi, but we ran out of kerosene the first night before we went to sleep, and the second night we turned it off because we couldn't handle the kerosene fumes. 

I know, I'm being a total Debbie Downer about this experience. I think Lacey and Scarlett had a great time... It just wasn't that fun for the adults. Will we do it again? Yes. But we will definitely be waiting until Scarlett can wake up at a more reasonable time! And we will also hope for better weather!