Camping with Wesley

This Friday night my friend Jonathan Hudgins (www.familyhudgins.blogspot.com), his son Jacob (also 1 of 3) Wesley and I went on an overnight camping trip in the Redwoods. It was kind of a right of passage for our two boys who just entered kindergarten.















I have to tell you that I am extremely proud of Wesley and Jacob! We probably pushed them too much for their age (4 & 5) but they both made it and had relatively good attitudes - we hiked in 2.8 miles to the campground and another 2.8 back out. This was not just a flat trail either. It was alot of ups and downs. We kept motivating them by talking about Yoda and Luke Skywalker.















"This is your training" We told them. "You guys are young jedis in training." It worked for some of the 3 hour walk each way. But at other times they would say, "I don't want to train."

In any case, we had fun. I have say that it was quite possibly the worst night of sleep I have ever encountered. First of all, I took a child's sleeping bag because it was the lightest I had. Then I didn't have a mat. So every fifteen minutes I would shift from my right hip to my left hip. Then when both hips were raw from the rocks beneath I would lay on my back. Because the sleeping bag was about 4 feet long I would take about 5 minutes to stretch out (because I was curled up in order not to freeze the rest of the time) and the sleeping bag would come to the middle of my chest. It is quite comical now that I look back. But I was (am) sore and tired.















In addition to that there was poision ivy lining most of the 2.8 mile trail in and out. It was a constant game of trying to not touch a vine. At one point, we had to take off all of our backpacks as it was so thick (through a part of the trail) then carry the backpacks ahead and each boy. Again as I write this it sounds crazy - but it was alot of fun.




Wesley on top of Goat Rock. The view was incredible!














At the beginning and end of the trail!