What could be better than weekend camping outings with the family?

For some strange reason I thought it would be fun to go camping over spring break.  After much thought and searching, I settled on Collier-Seminole State Park in Naples.  I convinced a friend of mine, Kim, to go with me and someone else we know said we could borrow his pop up camper.  The plans were set in motion and I could hardly wait.  Rex, the pop-up camper guy, is selling his pop-up for $1500 and I was entertaining the idea of buying it.  What could be better than weekend camping outings with my family?  So I seriously considered buying this pop up and having some good-old-fashioned-family-fun.

Everything was going very well until Thursday night.  Last week was another one of those weeks that was too busy.  So the night before our big trip, I was a stress ball - packing, food gathering, shopping, and laundry.  I wasn't very pleasant to be around, as is always the case before a trip.  Needless to say, it all got done and Mark was quite the trooper.  By now he's learned to let my crabbiness roll off his shoulders and just do what I ask.  

Friday comes and Mark had to fly to Miami with Harvey to get a passport.  He is stuck in Miami because it takes some crazy amount of time to get a passport...  Then its raining...  So Kim and I decide to leave Saturday instead.  Kim is my balancing force - she is all "whatever, dude" about this kind of stuff.

Saturday comes and we make it to the state park without incident.  We pull into the camping part and it was NOT what I expected.  I have very limited experience with camping - but what I have seen, there are sites by themselves  and more or less isolated.  My first reaction was - "Why are we in a refugee camp?"  That's what it looked like.  There were some trees, but it was more like a bunch people on a grass field camping.

Ok, this turns out to be no big deal because the surrounding people are really nice and don't mind my wandering children...  This picture is actually before everyone started arriving!  But I do realize why this was the only state park in southwest Florida with campsites still available for this weekend...

The boys have a pretty good time playing in the pop up and annoying Kim's son, William.  At the end of the day, he's thankful he doesn't have any younger brothers!

The pop up camper was wonderful and proved to be quite entertaining for the boys.  Ryan really liked the doors - but then again, Ryan likes doors period.

Among the fun were the s'mores, scenery, new "friends", and the pop up.  However as with all camping, there is DIRT everywhere.  At first Mark was constantly wiping the kids.  He got over that quickly and just let it be.  We had a great afternoon and evening lounging around and being utterly lazy.  The boys were exhausted and Ryan looked like a zombie.  We plopped them in the shower around 8 and got ready for bed.  They should go right to sleep, right?  Nope.  Finally around 10:50 I loaded them up in the minivan and drove them around for 45 minutes until they were asleep.  This is the second time in my life I have ever had to do that...

Finally, they are asleep and I carefully carry them into the pop up.  Then Zach wakes up, but he settles back down.  But the ordeal is far from over...  You see, we didn't use the bungee cords to secure the sides of the canvas to the bottom of the pop up and so all night long, I had to make sure the kids didn't slip through the sides of the pop up and land on the ground.  Ryan woke up a few more times and I stressed.  I am not upset that he woke up - it was the fact that the rest of the camp probably woke up too.  Ryan wasn't quite and we were all packed like sardines...  

The boys go back to sleep but around 6 am, like a rooster, Ryan is up crowing.  This time Mark drives them around until the rest of the world is up.  The stress over the boys making such noise kinda hung in the air for a few hours.  Fortunatley, Kim promises she was not awakened and upset about it.  In fact, she joked later that she got sleep.  So now I feel better about that...

For breakfast, Ryan had dirt - I mean cereal.  

Now, smart people would have kept the kids at the state park all day, but no, we decided to go home around noon.  Ryan "mewed" until about 30 miles from home where he finally fell asleep.  The rest of the day was full of "mewing" as Ryan was exhausted and took it out on us.  Mark and I are tired too...

So to answer my question, "What's better than a weekend camping outing?"  Just about anything...  I called Rex when we got home and told him the camper was a no-go.  I felt like I was breaking up with him!  Like I had led him on about buying the camper, but I can't picture us using it enough to have it sit in my garage.  Plus, we're a bit scarred!

But, I think we will try this camping gig again - with a tent, in a more isolated camp site, and with sleeping medicine.  (Just kidding about the meds - but very tempting...)  Had we known the kids wouldn't sleep, we would have probably done things a bit differently...  Hind sight right?  And if in the future we find ourselves camp-a-holics, then maybe a camper.  But right now, I'm thinking either tents or one of those luxury RV's...