The next morning, my daughter and I took a short sunrise hike along the water before heading to the bathrooms for our morning ablutions. If you’re looking for bathroom ratings at parks, I generally find that state parks have nicer/cleaner bathrooms than USACE parks. I think the former have a higher staff to visitor ratio. These were OK, though.
If you’re reading this thinking, “OMG, who needs bathroom ratings while camping?” – you clearly don’t have THAT child. The number of times I have said some variation of, “Hurry the fork up, we’re three feet from a busy hornet’s nest” while sharing a bathroom with my kid is well into the double digits. For parents with kids who are oblivious to pee splatter, scorpions, used toilet paper and spiders while doing their business, solidarity. Also though, rock on! We have 1000% less shrieking in our lives.
We took a lot of camping trips in November. Probably too many. I relied on habit rather than planning and checklisting (it’s make-a-verb day). On this trip, I forgot: my heavy jacket, the tent heater and the griddle. The first two weren’t a big deal, but the latter was cause for some cursing.
I'm a minimalist when camp cooking – a pot, mini kettle, and single burner are my tools. I only bring pancakes (and a griddle) on longer trips. I was trying to be fun, though, so I brought a pancake packet along on this trip. I don’t know why; my kid thinks our normal camping breakfast, grits, is amazeballs. At any rate, we all suffered through globular doughy things cooked in a pot. My family said they weren’t bad. I guess anything is good with a sufficient quantity of syrup.
We had a leisurely morning hanging out along the water, and kicking a ball around our campsite. Then we headed home to our regularly-scheduled weekend with birthday parties, grocery shopping, and homework.
Get out, and cook pancakes in a pot (pro tip: use a lot of oil).
Comments