When to throw in the towel...
Herd is a brief story of our first camping trip where we came home early... My wife and I decided to take a quick three night trip with our twin 14 month old girls for this week (teenagers had other activities). We made this decision about two weeks ago before the summer heat wave was forecasted. Living in CA, we decided to go to Yosemite, leaving on Sunday and returning on Wednesday.
First night we stayed at a Harvest Hosts location near Mariposa. When we arrived it was 105 degrees outside. The Hosts were kind enough to let us hangout in their home and our twins played with their 3 year old daughter for a while. We eventually retired back to the camper where the AC had been running to cool things down. We had a quick dinner and then worked on putting the girls to bed.
This is where things started going south on us... The twins had never been in the camper that they remembered at that point. I had rigged up a way to keep them securely in the dinette but failed to think about how easy it would be to climb up onto our bed.
At 8pm it was still 95 degrees and wasn't close to being dark yet. Exhausted we put the girls in their bed and climbed up on our bed to wait out the crying. We had to hold the curtains tight to keep them from trying to climb up on our bed. Here is when I realized I was in trouble... Looking at my wife who is a Saint, I could see the stress in her. The heat, the noise from the AC that sounded like a freight train two feet from your head and the crying of the babies did us in.
The twins eventually fell asleep thankfully but I struggled to sleep myself. The AC was so loud I couldn't put it out of my head. At 10pm it was still 90 degrees so I could turn it off. Then, at midnight, the worst thing a parent can here in the night, a crying baby... One of our twins woke up so I scrambled to grab her before she woke up the other. Midnight and the temps had finally dropped to about 80 degrees. Not being able to put up with the noise from the AC, I turned it off and ran the fans instead. My daughter stayed away for nearly two hours before finally falling asleep again.
That night I had a lot of thinking to do. As much as I wanted to continue our trip, I knew my goose was cooked. My Saint of a wife was on the edge of collapse from the stress. We had originally planned on going up to Tuolumne Meadows for the day and then stay the night at Silver Lake campground in the Eastern Side of the Sierras (forecasted to be cooler there). Our third day we were going to explore Yosemite Valley when the temps where supposed to be a "cooler" 89 degrees on the valley floor. As I contemplated plans, I realized it wasn't going to work. The combination of the girls and hear had us exhausted and burnt out barely one day into our trip.
I made the decision that the next day, we would still drive up to Yosemite for the day and enjoy what we could before heading home after just the one night. It was a blistering 95 degrees in the valley! We managed to find shady parking near the lodge and then packed up the girls and stroller to see if we could find some water for the girls to play in. Thankfully there was plenty of shade but it was still hot. We stopped, grabbed some food then spent about an hour trying to find a good place in the water for the girls. The wide was about at her limits but thankfully just before she was ready to say forget it, we found a nice place we could get the stroller to that had shade and a nice shallow area. We spent the next hour in the cool water enjoying playing with the girls and the scenery then decided it was time to head home.
We packed up, headed to the camper, got the girls changed and in their car seats then headed home. About four hours later, we where back home!
Usually I would be disappointed to end a trip early but in this case, it was the right call to make. Sometimes you have to know when your beaten and throw in the towel and this was one of those times. Thankfully Yosemite is only a few hours away. We will return some day but probably not till the girls are another year or two older.
(typed on my phone, sorry if there are typos...)
First night we stayed at a Harvest Hosts location near Mariposa. When we arrived it was 105 degrees outside. The Hosts were kind enough to let us hangout in their home and our twins played with their 3 year old daughter for a while. We eventually retired back to the camper where the AC had been running to cool things down. We had a quick dinner and then worked on putting the girls to bed.
This is where things started going south on us... The twins had never been in the camper that they remembered at that point. I had rigged up a way to keep them securely in the dinette but failed to think about how easy it would be to climb up onto our bed.
At 8pm it was still 95 degrees and wasn't close to being dark yet. Exhausted we put the girls in their bed and climbed up on our bed to wait out the crying. We had to hold the curtains tight to keep them from trying to climb up on our bed. Here is when I realized I was in trouble... Looking at my wife who is a Saint, I could see the stress in her. The heat, the noise from the AC that sounded like a freight train two feet from your head and the crying of the babies did us in.
The twins eventually fell asleep thankfully but I struggled to sleep myself. The AC was so loud I couldn't put it out of my head. At 10pm it was still 90 degrees so I could turn it off. Then, at midnight, the worst thing a parent can here in the night, a crying baby... One of our twins woke up so I scrambled to grab her before she woke up the other. Midnight and the temps had finally dropped to about 80 degrees. Not being able to put up with the noise from the AC, I turned it off and ran the fans instead. My daughter stayed away for nearly two hours before finally falling asleep again.
That night I had a lot of thinking to do. As much as I wanted to continue our trip, I knew my goose was cooked. My Saint of a wife was on the edge of collapse from the stress. We had originally planned on going up to Tuolumne Meadows for the day and then stay the night at Silver Lake campground in the Eastern Side of the Sierras (forecasted to be cooler there). Our third day we were going to explore Yosemite Valley when the temps where supposed to be a "cooler" 89 degrees on the valley floor. As I contemplated plans, I realized it wasn't going to work. The combination of the girls and hear had us exhausted and burnt out barely one day into our trip.
I made the decision that the next day, we would still drive up to Yosemite for the day and enjoy what we could before heading home after just the one night. It was a blistering 95 degrees in the valley! We managed to find shady parking near the lodge and then packed up the girls and stroller to see if we could find some water for the girls to play in. Thankfully there was plenty of shade but it was still hot. We stopped, grabbed some food then spent about an hour trying to find a good place in the water for the girls. The wide was about at her limits but thankfully just before she was ready to say forget it, we found a nice place we could get the stroller to that had shade and a nice shallow area. We spent the next hour in the cool water enjoying playing with the girls and the scenery then decided it was time to head home.
We packed up, headed to the camper, got the girls changed and in their car seats then headed home. About four hours later, we where back home!
Usually I would be disappointed to end a trip early but in this case, it was the right call to make. Sometimes you have to know when your beaten and throw in the towel and this was one of those times. Thankfully Yosemite is only a few hours away. We will return some day but probably not till the girls are another year or two older.
(typed on my phone, sorry if there are typos...)
