We love camping!
When our children were younger, summer camping trips were a big part of our lives. We happily packed our vehicles to the brim with tents, coolers, lanterns, firewood, sleeping bags, stoves, Dutch ovens, charcoal, watermelons, marshmallows, hot dog sticks, and so on as we headed up the nearby canyons for a few evenings of escape from city heat, traffic, telephones, and noise. Many wonderful camping sites are within an hour of our home and offer hiking trails, fishing, streams for wading, lakes, fresh air, and relaxation.
One of my favorite camping activities has to be watching the night sky, with all the stars twinkling in the darkness. Living in a city, those stars are just hidden in the reflection of the lights.
The problem is, we had such a busy summer that we had a hard time making it to the mountains. Coordinating schedules with all of our children and their families gets harder every year.
We did make it to Mueller Park for an evening dinner, at the beginning of the summer. It is a beautiful place, just a few miles up Bountiful canyon. But an evening picnic dinner isn’t quite the same as spending the night crowded together in a tent, cooking over a fire, and bonding with each other in the great outdoors.
As hard as we tried, the summer sped by without any family campouts, so we did the next best thing- an urban family campout at home.
This is the second year we have had an “Urban campout”, right here in West Valley City, in our very own back yard.
We only had to put up one really big tent. The food was kept cold in the refrigerator until we were ready to eat it. The grill was already in place and just had to be lit, and the bathrooms were clean and odor free (and only a few steps away).
Robbie hung a large sheet for our movie screen and a fire was lit in the fire pit,
Pretty low maintenance for a camping trip!
Instead of hauling everything to the camp site and spending hours setting up, we had plenty of time to relax and unwind from the week’s labors.
Maddie even celebrated her 9th birthday with a mini party.
While there is something wonderful about rough camping in the beautiful mountains, coming home with dirty feet, bonfire smoke tinging your hair and your clothes, and then having to unpack and put away all the camping gear, it is a lot of work.
Urban camping isn’t quite the same, but not a bad second.
And so much less physical labor!
Will we do this again?
Pretty sure we will.
JoAnn
P.S. Do you like to camp and where do you go?
