Roadtripping & Camping with a Baby Part 2

We survived a major camping trip that included 1700 miles of travel, 3 camping locations, 3 states, and 5 nights away. This trip took a lot more organization than our previous camping excursion, but it went much more smoothly! Hopefully, our experiences encourage you to be adventurous with your family. It's ok if things don't go perfectly. Both of our trips had plenty of hiccups, even with lots of planning. But we came away with memories that will be foundational to our family.

Tips for long drives and camping with a baby: 

• Take breaks. Our goal was to try to drive in 3-hour increments before stopping, but being flexible to follow baby's lead in case he needed a stop sooner than that.
• Pack lunches and snacks for the drive. I made sandwiches for every driving day and portioned ziplocks of chips, fruit, and drinks for us. We also had snacks and meals ready to go for Aaron.

 

• Take advantage of community parks on the drive. We used our map app during our drive to find parks along our route. You can find yelp reviews and photos for most parks which can help to ensure that you are finding the correct kind of park (not a business park and in a safe area) and that it has the correct equipment (i.e. slide, bucket swings). It's also a fun adventure! We discovered some really special communities on our drive, like Dunsmuir, CA.

• Know your baby's limits. Aaron's daily driving limit is about 7 hours  (not including stops). It was painful for all of us when we pushed it to 8 hours. Plan accordingly.
• Be flexible!!! We booked a stay in a yurt in beautiful Harris Beach State Park on the Oregon coast. However, when we took our playground break in Medford, OR, it was abundantly clear that the 2.5 more hours of driving to get there was going to be a nightmare for all of us. Not to mention the extra 2.5 hours we would have to spend returning to the I-5 to resume our travels to WA. So we forfeited the $50 for that stay and drove to another campsite that had yurts 30 minutes away. When baby's happiness and comfort come first, the whole family is happier!

• Yurts/Cabins are an easy alternative to tent camping. We just brought some sheets and settled in for the night. It felt so relaxing! Oregon State Parks have the most amazing website to find campgrounds that have yurts, cabins, and even teepees.

• Storage drawers for kitchen supplies. This was an idea we found on Pinterest. It was so much better than digging through a deep tub of supplies.

• Make a detailed menu plan that includes all meals and snacks for baby. We also wrote all the ingredients for every meal so that we forget anything before we left home.

 

 Meals for babies included: pureed chicken soup, yogurt, mashed banana, applesauce, cheese, pear pieces

• Storage containers for baby food. The OXO containers for baby food that I had prepped ahead of time were perfect!
• Baby fence for a safe play area. This was helpful for making sure our crawler didn't go too far. I will say that it works best with a baby who can play alone or with 2 or more little ones.

• Foam tiles for a play area in the tent and for a cushioned walkway. We had a lot of roots and rocks in our campsite, so the extra cushioning was helpful.
• Tent big enough for a pack n play and our air mattress. This made camping so much more comfortable! We were able to put Aaron to bed at his usual bedtime then enjoy some adult time by the fire.

• Dressing baby warmly for sleeping through 50* nights. We put Aaron in fleece pajamas and a beanie to sleep, laid him on top of his lambskin, and covered him with 2 light baby blankets. Even when we were cold under our 2 heavy blankets and sleeping bag, he slept like a rock all night long!
• Toys, toys, toys. We brought lots of toys to provide some distraction during the drive and some entertainment at the campsite. New toys also help provide more interest. I can't believe how many toys we crammed in the car, but I was glad we took them all!
• Baths for baby in a storage tub.

• Put the phone away. Getting pictures is great, but sometimes the camera gets in the way of the moment. I wish I had left mine in the tent more often.
• Adapt and go with the flow. It seems self-explanatory, but when it starts raining or equipment isn't working, it gets really tough to stay focused on the big picture. If everyone can still be fed, sleep, and enjoy themselves, it's going to be fine. For example, we rented a cargo box to go on top of our car, but after our time tent camping with family, it wouldn't open at our next stop. Our tent, camp chairs, pack n play, sleeping bag, extra warm blankets, and astro turf were trapped. Fortunately, our next camping stay was in a yurt so we were done with the tent. We were really bummed to be without the sleeping bag and blankets, but especially anxious about missing the pack n play. While I happened to have a spare blanket in my bag, we had to get more creative to put together Aaron's sleeping arrangement. We took the twin mattress provided in the yurt, put it on the floor, put down blankets, then created a rectangle around the mattress with the baby fence. Ingenuity at its finest!

 

It was such a special weekend of good conversations with Brandon on the long drives and memories of experiences the 3 of us shared over the weekend. On the last night I was putting Aaron to bed and I took a few extra minutes to hold him as I realized how quickly time has passed. Our family will have more adventures, but we will never have that same experience again.

 

Camping with a Baby: Things We Did Well & Lessons Learned

After our first camping trip as a family of 3 we are tired, sore, wizened, and already thinking about our next camping trip.

While we had a great time making memories as a new family, we learned a lot. Hopefully our experiences will encourage you to have fun in
the great outdoors with your little ones too!

First, here are some of the things that we did well:

• We just went for it. It's easy to be intimidated by camping with kids, especially babies. But we loved camping before kids, and want to raise our kids enjoying one of our favorite past times.

• We kept baby warm. Between long sleeves, hats, double layered pants, and jackets, baby stayed very warm. At night we wrapped him in a blanket by the campfire. Then, he slept between us which was good for him... but not for us.

• Screened-in awning to keep bugs away from baby and meal time. Brandon found a huge 11'x9' screened-in awning with magnetic closing doors at Costco for $90. That thing was amazing! Looking forward to using this in the summertime when there are lots of mosquitoes. (This one is a similar magnetic door screened cover)

•  Pack n Play area. We put our Pack n Play in the screened-in area to create a safe, clean play space for Aaron. We would put a few select toys in with him and he played independently 10-30 minutes at a time.

• We brought lots of toys and favorite things. Even though space was tight, we brought a full bag of his toys and the familiar lambskin he sleeps on in his crib at home. Those items made independent play time and sleeping go smoothly.
• Clip on seat. This clip on seat hooked right onto the picnic table for our meal times. Bonus: it is compact for travel.

• We planned some low maintenance meals. Cooking meals that are as good or better than meals we make at home is one of our favorite parts of camping. We love Dutch oven cooking, but it is fairly time intensive and better for groups than it is for only 2 adults. So foil packet meals were great for the short prep and almost no clean up. Now, I understand why those boxes of Costco ready to eat cereal bowls were so popular with my family when we were little. (Remember those?!)
  
  
• Astroturf! We got a large piece of Astroturf for free recently and I'm so glad we picked it up! The turf was wonderful as a mat outside the tent to cut down on tracked in dirt and it was a great place to allow Aaron to do some supervised scooting. On our next trip, I don't think he'll stay on the turf as easily though unless we put up some temporary fencing; which, isn't a bad idea!
  
• Prepped meals at home. We spent about 2 hours at home prepping ingredients for meals so they were ready to go. We chopped onions, cooked bacon, fajita chicken, rice, and prepped an apple crisp topping and base. This prep made it so easy to reach into the cooler for the appropriate Ziplock and throw a meal together.
• Ready to go meals for baby. We love those Plum organic squeezeable meal packets! (He loves them too!)
  
  
• We planned a short stay. For our first trip, 2 nights was just right! Since we weren't sure how things would go, it was nice that we found a first come, first served site so we could pay one night at a time. 
• We did research. Campgrounds vary quite a bit. Some are wonderful for families, while some are more for crowds of college kids. Read Yelp, Tripadvisor, reservation details, and look for campground photos. We camped at Butano State Park which was perfect for families!

Ok, so before it sounds like I'm bragging about how great we are, here are some of the lessons we learned from our first campout:

• Everything takes longer. Everyone tells you how much longer things take with a baby, but sometimes you don't believe it until you experience it. Before baby, it would take us 1-1.5 hours to pack up the car and the same to break camp. With baby, it took us 3 hours to do both tasks. Knowing that it would take us that long would have saved me some anxiety.
• More easy meals!!!! We had a few meals that were a bit ambitious. The stuffed fajita peppers and paleo apple crisp were delicious, but could have been skipped or modified to be foil packet meals. This is one I want to focus on and start making a special family camp recipe binder.
• More blankets and warm clothes for mom and dad. Self-explanatory one. Baby was warm, but we were a bit chilly. We were so focused on keeping him warm that we didn't think about ourselves for every situation.
• Bathtime bucket. This time we were able to keep Aaron relatively clean since he is not very mobile yet, but next time we will definitely need to have a bath bucket and supplies under the screened awning for nightly scrub-downs.
• Bigger tent with a designated sleeping space for baby. We took our 4-person tent with a queen size mattress and it was very tight. Brandon and I were almost falling off the mattress with our son sleeping starfish style between us. It was also a bummer that Brandon and I couldn't cuddle in the cold, but rather had to sleep in odd contorted positions to make sure Aaron had enough space. At least he slept amazing! (Sidenote: we had a large tent given to us that we were planning to bring, but we discovered last minute that it was missing all the tent poles!)
  
• Try to keep your baby's nap schedule. Aaron's main nap of the day happens after lunch time from about 1-3, which is pretty typical. We made the mistake of taking an excursion into town during that time hoping that he would be flexible... this was a recipe that led to no afternoon nap and an overtired baby that evening. In my opinion, I think the optimal times for an outing would be in the morning after breakfast or late afternoon (post-nap).

 These last two lessons are the most important things you can take away from this post, and were big ones we debriefed about after some frustrated conversations.

• Make the choice between utility/resourcefulness and quality time. I can get pretty ambitious about trying to reduce waste, using non-disposable items, and maximizing baby-free moments to clean, prep, etc. All those things are well and good but if you try to do all those things 100%, you are choosing that over quality time together. I'm not saying use only Styrofoam and a new cup for every drink. Next time, I'll bring some paper or compostable dishes and create a soapy bowl or bucket to toss utensils and dishware into to create one dishwashing time. I'll also put quality time or relaxing first!
• Quality family time ≠ Quality couple time. We made wonderful memories as a family, but between all the work camping takes and wrangling a 7 month old, Brandon and I barely interacted as a couple, let alone had any physical contact! 3 things that we will do differently next time:
1. When (or if) baby takes a nap, take those first 15-30 minutes to connect in some way or relax together enjoying your surroundings.
2. If there's a time that baby is content with some independent playtime, again, take those first few minutes to connect even if it's just to hug and share a laugh over something that happened that morning before you start tackling clean-up duties.
3. Separate sleeping space for baby. So many reasons for that one! 

Camping with a baby and seeing their wonder as they look at the trees and touch the dirt is really amazing. It is also a rare time of being completely unplugged together. It takes work, but it is so worth it!

For more tips, check out Roadtripping & Camping with a Baby Part 2!

Thank you for allowing me to include some affiliate links in this post.

His take, Her take

Traveling as a couple is quite an experience. There is so much you learn about each other as you are put in situations you wouldn't normally experience in everyday life. We were talking with friends of ours today about this and one of them said to just wait until we travel with kids. Yikes!

Here are some things I {Jenny} learned about Brandon:

We knew we wanted to rent a car for portions of our trip in Europe. But I'll be honest. I was so nervous about Brandon driving around Europe! I was also very curious to see how he would respond to certain things... the language barrier, different cultural norms, a parade of churches and museums, street vendors shoving objects in your face...

I have more faith in him as a competent driver than before. He was awesome on the autobahn and in a baptism by fire in the streets of Florence. There were times when we had to fight across lines of vespas and cars to make a turn and he did it! Round-abouts? No problem! There were times I wanted to hide my eyes when we were on those crazy two-lane freeways with big-rigs on one side and sportscars racing up behind us, but he rocked our sweet little Opel.

I was impressed at how Brandon jumped into each city without much reservation. He was attempting to speak the language and greeting shopkeepers and restaurant staff. His smile and kind greeting was warmly received wherever we went. I loved that! He is such a social learner. He thrives and learns through interpersonal connections. Every place we went, he was trying to start up conversations. I really admire that quality in him as I tend to be more reserved and introverted.

I was also surprised at Brandon's appreciation of the art we enjoyed. It was wonderful to share those art gallery walks with him. I loved how much we connected over art and history. Brandon has such a sense of adventure that I'm not sure I really knew the extent of before this trip. He was up for trying just about anything and taking my long walks... even after he had already experienced a few.

We shared so many wonderful experiences together. As with walking through each new challenge or experience, I love Brandon more now than I did when we married.

Here are some things I {Brandon} learned about Jenny:

In preparing for this trip, I relied on Jenny for a lot of the planning since she had been there before and was familiar with many of the things we were going to encounter. I know she's a planner and I love that about her and that we share that in common, but I was blown away with the level of detail she put into her planning. We didn't waste a moment on our trip and it was all thanks to her.

I was a bit nervous about the language barrier and having to converse in German, Italian, and French along our way. I knew that Jenny spoke French, but I was stunned by how beautifully she spoke it and how well she engaged the native French in all sorts of situations. Restaurants, on the phone, conducting business. Definitely a wow moment seeing her in that element. She is definitely a world traveler and she is in her element exploring this part of the world.

I learned that my wife is a bigger history buff than I realized. As we explored the sites and museums of Normandy, I loved that she was as into finding beaches, buildings, and exhibits as I was and I loved talking about the events and impacts as we drove.

I also discovered Jenny's public transportation persona. She gets incredibly serious, especially on subways and it's pretty intimidating. It's a stone cold forward facing look that says "DON'T mess with me!" It took me several uneasy trips to figure this out and I completely understand it now, considering all of her trips to Europe before this have been as a single woman. I'm glad that I can be there for her now and protect her from the guy in a Napoleonic outfit singing and dancing with a baby doll and the drunken English college students jumping up and down and shouting. Both true events on our trip.

Something my in-laws did not clue me in on before we left was something called a "Jenny-walk." To define it, a "Jenny-walk" starts as a walk to a destination that is "just a few blocks away." You may or may not get to that original destination, but the walk branches out from there until you've found yourself miles from where you started seeing things you never intended. Though we returned exhausted and with sore feet, those walks are now fond memories.

Blaming GPS and other invaluable lessons learned on the art of travel

During our trip to Europe, we learned a lot. We learned more about each other (more on that later) and we learned more about the art of traveling. Here are some of the top lessons we learned:

1. Print and organize copies of all your confirmations for hotels, train tickets, plane tickets, attractions, etc. It is also helpful to print maps of where each hotel is located; this is a great quick reference for you and for a taxi driver.
2. Try to fly in and out of the same airport
3. At that airport, rent a car for touring that you can return to the same airport. Traveling from point A to B with trains, buses, subways... can add up fast. A car rental is helpful if you plan on doing a lot of day trips or moving between several cities.
4. Car rentals in Europe from major airports are not very expensive per day. If you drop the car somewhere else, expect to pay A LOT! That was an expensive novice mistake.
5. There is a fine balance between time and money. An occasional splurge to save time (the car rental, taking a taxi) is often worth it.
6. Take plenty of cash. Budget well and write down purchases down to the last euro to answer the question "What happened to all our money?"
7. Tipping is different in Europe. Service is usually included in your tab and 1-2 euros will suffice for a sit-down tab. If the service is exceptional and the restaurant is on the nicer end, a more generous tip may be appropriate.
8. Sitting down at a restaurant or cafe will usually cost you. Especially at major landmarks and in outdoor areas. We avoided paying a hefty price for gelato by looking at the prices and not being afraid to get up and walk away.
9. Don't be afraid to exercise your NO. Being nice or polite to pushy vendors or people following you will only encourage them to push more. Give a firm, clear NO and people will leave you alone. We had vendors nearly touching us and thrusting flowers in our faces, we became very good at saying NO.
10. Take time to rest and eat. There's nothing worse than a cranky traveling companion.
11. Try to keep a stash of snacks from the grocery store handy. Grocery stores are wonderful spots to get drinks and snacks for a fraction of the cost of those carts by the tourist attractions.
12. Take water bottles to Europe. Fill them up at the hotel and you'll be set for some summer sightseeing. We brought water purification pills, but found our water to be drinkable at every hotel we stayed at.
13. Bring your phone. You never know when you'll need to call a hotel or use wifi to confirm a reservation. Be sure to read your service provider's tips on traveling internationally. Turn off roaming, data, and 3G. If you receive data via mobile service (not wifi), you will be charged $19.98 per MB in most countries. Sign up for global calling and text messaging (this costed about $16 on one of our iphones).
14. There's nothing like a good map. Even if you've been to the city before... *ahem* I have a tendency in being overconfident in cities I've visited before and contributed to a few of our longer exploratory walks/drives... We had many: Florence & Rome airport, London, Normandy, Paris...
15. Speaking of navigation, if you rent a car, get GPS! This will save you time and frustration. That way instead of getting mad at each other, you can blame the maker of the navigation system for coming out with such a shoddy product to get you lost. :)
16. For each destination, make a list with your fellow travelers of the must-see/must-do items and a secondary list. This helps with time prioritization and making sure that everyone is represented in planning daily itineraries.
17. Get out early (there'll be time for naps later). You'll be able to get a jump on the queues and you're likely to see a different city as it wakes up as opposed to the heavily trafficked version.
18. Gaining some familiarity with the language will take you far! People who speak English at popular destinations is very common, but if you are brave and graciously try to speak their language, most people will respect and appreciate the gesture. This is most valuable in France where the French are very proud of their language. At least master "hello", "thank you", and "please". Bonjour, Bon giorno, Gutentag Merci, Grazie, Danke S'il vous plait, Per favore, Bitte
19. For a cheaper meal, search for a spot further away from the attractions without outdoor seating.
20. Be sure to pack: sunscreen, bug spray, bandaids (blisters), clothing detergent, good walking shoes, outlet converter and wattage transformer
21. I cannot stress having good walking shoes enough! If you are lucky to find some that are more subdued or stylish, good for you. Brand shoes scream American, but if your feet aren't aching it won't matter as much. My Rainbow flipflops declared mutiny on my feet and I missed my old Birkenstocks that didn't survive my move to WA.
22. The most important thing: Be patient with the process and each other. In Rome a tour guide told us the rule of 70% in Europe. Things will work out 70% of the time. Accepting this will help you avoid some unnecessary stress. Even with hours and hours of planning, there will still be surprises. Stay on each other's team and work through it together. The more skilled you become at problem-solving together, traveling and, consequently living life, becomes more fun and beautiful.

Europe day 11: Paris

Slept in late. So nice. This trip has been wonderful but exhausting! :)

We started out by finding a small bakery for breakfast. We had a Parisian breakfast which consists of coffee or tea and a croissant or pain au chocolate. It was a tasty but a very light meal compared to our English breakfasts at our previous hotel of cereal, egg, toast, "bacon" (fried ham), tomato, juice, and coffee/tea.

So we walked to admire the garnier opera house and get some Starbucks. The one I used to like moved down the street. It was huge! And very friendly just like at home. :) The decor was quite posh. Painted ceilings, chandeliers, oh Paris. Starbucks is everywhere here by the way.

Then we walked from there to the marais. We passed by some pet stores and couldn't help but look! We miss our little dog a lot. We finally got to a bakery that I love for ham and cheese sandwiches on a baguette. Then we walked to the park behind notre dame to eat. We were starving! I had inadvertently taken Brandon on another " Jenny walk". We decided that my habit of proposing to walk somewhere that "isn't that far" and ends up being a 2-6 mile trek is called a "Jenny walk". Poor Brandon. Poor feet! We eventually headed home for a quick rest. (that is, collapsing into a 2 hour nap)

Our evening was a series of misadventures with another "Jenny walk" from the louvre to the Eiffel tower and back. (to appreciate how far these walks are you have to see a map! It's crazy!) the highlights were walking through the Tuileries garden by fragrant lavender, taking photos of the Eiffel tour and appreciating its massive size, most of the walk, plotting how we'd disable an attacker on the quieter streets, deciding to take the metro to get to the marais area for a 11pm dinner, finding pizza San Antonio for a second night in a row, discovering that egg on pizza is pretty good.

After our trip we'll be posting "awards" and Europe travel tips that we've learned mainly through our errors. :) À tout à l'heure!

Europe day 6: Vatican and off to London!

Rome Walks tour was unbelievable! One of the best tours I've been on. The history and art came to life! Incredible stories told by our guide who is a believer and has a passion for church history. The Sistine chapel had so much more meaning. It was interesting how michaelangelo wanted to convey biblical scenes showing the fallenness-humanness-of mankind to man in crisis to intimacy and connection with God. I didn't realize that michaelangelo had never painted before being told by forceful warrior pope Julius to paint the sistine chapel. And then to paint al fresco (into wet plaster) upside down. Then he was asked to finish designing the basilica. Wow, michaelangelo truly changed art forever. So many more stories I could share... Like what a sick freak (there are other words...) that Nero was. Ew.

Then we battled italian modes of transportation to get to the airport. After our flight and our second train ride of the day, we opted to take a taxi rather than lugging our heavy packs through the tube. Our hotel is very quaint but is comfortable. Nice to crash!

Europe day 3: the longest drive & Florence

We had an incredible dinner tonight! It was a gift, truly incredible! We dined at villa San Michelle in fiesole which overlooks Florence. My favorite parts of the meal were the peach Bellini, florentine steak, wine, cappuccino dessert with cinnamon gelato. Oh and a doppio espresso to counteract the wine because everything before that point was utterly exhausting!

We woke up early and launched out of Salzburg to a salt mine in hallein. It was a really cool tour! It kind of felt like being at Disneyland. We rode a train into the mine then barreled down wood slides until we were 210 meters below the ground! We took the tour with a group of 9 year old Austrian kids on a field trip. We were very intriguing to them--they kept sneaking peeks at us and staring when the guide spoke English to us. So funny! Makes me wonder what assumptions they have about Americans.

Then we started our 720 km drive to Florence. Driving through the alps was unbelievable, but once we encountered the Italian way of driving... We were anxious to be done! :) The drive took 8.5 hours. Then Brandon was rudely introduced to Florence driving. Wow. His take: " it's complete anarchy. There's no rules so make up your own." Especially the scooters...

Thankfully we are safe in our very humid room at the hostel. :)