First Camping Trip

camping has been a part of my entire life, and i despirately want to make sure it’s a part of my daughter’s life as well. i even bought “babes in the woods” to help me get prepared.

one thing it mentioned over and over was the importance of non-cotton apparel. but with the emphasis on organic everything, it’s difficult to find baby clothes that aren’t cotton. so i grabbed a too-small work out shirt from my (totally under-utilized) athletic apparel drawer and went to town. here’s the onesie i made next to the template onesie:

i finished it over the course of a day, during various naps, etc. and it’s a good thing i did, because we used it right away!  she’s almost 8 months old, but whether we were ready or not, we opted to take advantage of the long weekend and car camp at a local-ish spot. i think she had fun, despite the chilly weather. (she’s wearing my wool socks over her leggings in this photo:)

it got pretty cold though that first night (41F!) and we weren’t really prepared for that, so after some hiking and checking out the local springs, we opted to check out a little early. we stayed through dinner on the second day and past dark (which isn’t all that late anymore), until we were all ready to stop putting wood on the fire. then we did final packing and headed home.

it was fun, i’m glad we did it. and we definitely have a lot to work on for next time!

what experiences or traditions are you working hard to pass along to the next generation?

Into the Great Wide Open

i thoroughly enjoy Tom Petty.  the album “into the great wide open” is a must-have for road trips; it’s always the first CD in the line-up!

we’ve been hearing songs from that album randomly at restaurants and shops lately which has been giving Hubs and i the itch to hit the road.  with the Little One so new still, that won’t be happening any time soon (at least not for trips longer than it takes to get to Oma and Opa’s house 3hrs away).  but we’ve already got our first “big” road trip destination in mind:

Washington DC @ Lonely Planet

Washington DC! where friends and monuments, museums and scenery will all be on the to-do list!

we’ve got a ton of friends there, both from high school and college.  i’ve only ever spent a quick weekend there (of which only about half a day was spent checking out DC’s tourist destinations); and though Hubby had a summer internship there once, he never really spent time doing the tourist thing.

plus, on the way are some other destinations we’ve been meaning to check out, like:

Savannah @ Let's Plan Our Holiday: a travel blog

Savannah, GA! where we want to check out the historic buildings, beautiful trees, and maybe eat at Paula Deen’s restaurant.

and there’s a handful of other destinations i’d like to hit while we’re up that way, such as:

Philadelphia @ Lonely Planet

Philadelphia, PA! where we’d like to experience the various historical landmarks that are important to our country’s history, such as the liberty bell and independence hall, etc.

and we’re going to camp as much as we can during this trip! we’ve already got a handful of state parks we want to check out near savannah.  i’ve still got some research to do along the rest of the route though.

do you have any suggestions for food/attractions/lodging/state parks at any of those hot-spots?

(krissy, i’m looking at you!)

Into the Wild

i love camping.  and road trips. and hiking. (but today’s post is all about camping!)

i do need to clarify, though: i’ve only ever done car-camping.  you know, drive into a spot, unpack the trunk, eat food from a cooler or cooked over a bulky camp stove, with plenty of games and toys (frisbee and football) to keep busy. the farthest anything is carried is a couple dozen feet depending on the size of the camp site.

we did this a lot as a family when i was growing up. it was the easiest and cheapest way to get 4 kids to experience the USA in person.  a campsite at a state park or KOA, even today, only costs about 20-30 bucks a night with usually up to 8 people allowed.  a hotel room, on the other hand, will fit usually no more than 4 people and now-a-days usually costs 80-100+ for a decently clean room. thus, i’m very well versed on how to pitch and tear down a tent, how to roll a sleeping bag super tight, and how to sleep with my dad snoring about 10 feet away.

i would LOVE to try backpack camping though.  i like the idea of having more seclusion from other (potentially obnoxious) campers, the idea of being closer to nature, the idea of living off the land (you know, assuming i learned what plants were edible).

we’ve been slowly building up the quality of our camping gear to be adequate for backpacking. but it’s not there yet.  we’re excited to try, but Hubby will probably have the opportunity sooner than i will.  a good friend of his has plenty of experience backpack-camping and wouldn’t mind teaching us a thing or two.

we didn’t just wake up one day and decide that wandering into the woods with only what you can carry on your back to sustain/protect you sounded like a good idea.  Hubs and i have had a few car camping experiences together, all of them enjoyable except for the occasional rain storm/flash flood.

continue reading for stories and pictures of our previous camping excursions and the recent purchases that brought us another step closer to being backpack campers!

SLF 5k Recap

i promised a recap of all the complaints, excuses, and explanations i have for my performance at the recent NASA Inter-center 2 mile, 5k, 10k race at the SLF (that’s Shuttle Landing Facility for you non-meatballers)! and here it is:

originally, a free 5k run at the SLF sounded like a marvelous idea!  i pretty much convinced everyone else in my running group that we should do this since it was free, available to most of us (except for 1 person who doesn’t have the badging to get onto the Center) and the chance of a lifetime.  how many people can say they’ve been on the runway at the SLF? okay, well hundreds, probably more like a couple thousand, but in the grand scheme of things that’s almost nothing!

and how convenient and perfect for us that it was scheduled on a tuesday, a day when our running group would normally meet anyways and get their jog on.

well, when we got there it was a different story.  we didn’t have our usual routine of stretch, drink a bit of water (but not too much), go to the bathroom, warm up, and have a known route (very helpful for pacing!).  instead, we had a hot, humid, WINDY, unknown route that would take us over black-top for the entire 5k. we had unknown runners all around us and no good method for pacing (none of us brought our mp3 players, doh!) and no good spot to do our normal warm up walk. not to mention the port-a-potties (which, though they were probably the cleanest ones i’ve ever used, were still not as nice as air-conditioned indoor plumbing!).

once we DID get going in the actual race, we didn’t get to interact with eachother as much as we usually do when we run our usual loop.  the SLF run had us going 2.5k down the runway and then turning around and coming right back to the start/finish line, which meant there was no lapping, or going backwards, and no way to increase the interaction with our friends unless someone sped up or slowed down to match another’s pace (not ideal!).

running, to me, is all about the comraderie.  yes, it’s also about pushing myself to be a better me, but i can’t do it alone (and i don’t want to either!).  so having all my usual running mates run past and leave me behind was more disheartening than usual knowing i would only see them once at the beginning of the run, once in the middle (if i was paying attention) and once at the end (if i made it that far).

add to that the fiendish wind that kept toying with my breathing and causing me to be winded when i wasn’t even tired yet, it was a trying race.  every time i tried to catch my breath, i had to slow to a walk to do it.  every time i thought i could speed up again, i wouldn’t last more than a minute (ha! if that!) before i had to walk again.

i was beat by at least 1 pregnant lady (who apparently was truckin’ cuz she also beat one of my friends who’s faster than i am) and plenty of old people. i was even beat by a couple people who power walked the whole thing! UGH!

but in my defense, i have excuses:

1. i did stop and pick up 2 or 3 styrofoam cups that had flown away from the trash and/or water stations along the way and ended up in the grass.  you’d think that NASA would have a biodegradable cup for their outdoor physical fitness event!
2. and i kept getting this annoying side ache.  very piercing and smack dab in the middle of my left side.  since i couldn’t keep my breathing even, it was very difficult for me to make it go away and resume running (cuz it just came right back as soon as i sped up!). very annoying.

overall, i really didn’t do that bad.  my goal was to not be the last person to cross the finish for the 5k, and i wasn’t (even though i didn’t actually cross the finish because i didn’t want my time to be tabulated); there were about 10 people behind me (out of those who actually DID cross the finish line and get their time tabulated).  i also wanted to be able to sprint at the end, and i totally could (since i walked most of the race, i still had plenty of pep left in me; the wind was really the only thing preventing me from pushing myself harder over the entire duration).  and i wanted to say “i’ve been on the runway at the SLF” and now i can!

also, (actually, i should say “luckily”) when the frustration at not being able to do my best threatened to make me drop to my knees and break into sobs, i was able to calm myself down by soaking up my view of the landscape.  granted, the runway at the SLF is secluded, and at the heat of the day the wildlife was scarce, but it was still a really great experience.

not many people get such a view of the mate/de-mate device used to remove the shuttle from its special Boeing 747 after piggy-back rides from the west coast.  not many people get to be on the tarmac where astronauts return to earth after weeks in space and thousands of orbits of the earth at speeds most people can’t comprehend.  not many people are as lucky as we are to be able to say, “why yes, i AM a rocket scientist!” and not many people (sadly) are able to say, “why yes, i HAVE participated in a 5k race before!”