A River Runs Through It

Months ago, with our friends the McKinneys, we reserved two campsites at Whitewater State Park in southern Minnesota and then prayed for good weather. Aside from weather, what could go wrong when camping with a 1, 1.5 and 3.5 year old?

We left on a beautiful Friday afternoon during nap time. That was mostly successful, but Lillian didn’t sleep as long as we’d have liked so she woke up and grumped the last portion of the drive. But, once we were at the campsite, everyone perked up to be on this new adventure. We’d set the tent up earlier in the week to air out in the backyard and Ella was quite adamant to point out, “I don’t like it!” as often as possible. She wanted nothing to do with our tent. However, out in the great outdoors, it was suddenly fun and amazing! While setting up our tent, we had the park ranger stop by and then comb through the woods near the river next to our campsite. He then warned us that we should hope the wind remained because MNDOT may or may not have run over a creature with their mower on the side of the road. He was quick to point out that they can remove whole things, but not things that are in a million pieces…gross, thanks. Omen? I never smelled anything more rank than Lillian’s diaper or some stagnant river water during our stay, so it all worked out. The girls loved the tent, helping set up the tent, playing in the tent, playing next to the tent, going in and out of the tent. It was all about the tent.

 

Ella was in charge of stakes.

Alex, Christy and Hunter arrived shortly after we did. Ella has some sort of weird phobia of Alex and typically screams horribly around him for no good reason. Despite the fact that we’ve travelled internationally with them, she’s known them since birth and we hang out with them frequently, there’s always some drama. Ella was a little timid initially, but there was no crying, vomiting or screaming. Perhaps, this was going to work out alright!

We had a great first night, complete with a dinner of hotdogs and corn on the cob cooked over the fire and some tortellini. We then went to enjoy the bluegrass jam band program where our three children mostly did their best to entertain the crowd by dancing, crawling in, under and around things, jumping, eating rocks…the typical child induced entertainment. They were really enjoying themselves. After jamming and all that entails, we had to head to town because we forgot Loran’s toothbrush and a container larger than a personal water bottle for storing water. Note to everyone, you may want to rethink doing any sort of primitive camping with our family. Or, bring extra water. We then set out to put everyone on the short side to bed. Ella was very excited to sleep in her new sleeping bag, Lillian wanted nothing to do with this adventure and wanted to make sure the entire campground realized that she was being detained in a Pack and Play completely against her will. Nobody would break her and make her sleep. Eventually, since her screaming mostly contained the word, “MOOOOOOMMMYYYY!!!!”, it was decided that I would have to leave the tent for awhile so Lillian could regain her composure. I went to visit Alex and Christy’s campfire a few sites down. I could hear some screaming from our tent, but within minutes, the calm din of campground evening chatter resumed and Lillian passed out, as did Ella. And shortly after, Loran and me. It rained overnight, but we stayed dry in our tent. It was very relaxing to hear the pitter-patter of raindrops on the tent and because it is late August, the sun rose at a reasonable hour and thankfully, the birds were quiet and peaceful. It was really a perfect night of sleep!

When nature calls…

Our second day, we were up and enjoyed breakfast and then set out on a hike with Alex and Christy. Ella was a great hiker and it was on this adventure that Ella declared Alex “an okay guy!” – her words. He helped Ella find butterflies, pointed out all kinds of neat nature-y things and even found some wild Gooseberries to eat. She was enamored by his wisdom, he does after all, work for the Three Rivers Park District, so he has to know this kind of woodsy stuff, and Christy grew up camping. Just compare campfires at the end of the nights to see who the pros were. We eventually donated the rest of our wood to them... We were on an interpretive trail that was marked periodically with numbered markers. Ella found this quite delightful. We were disturbed to find out our campground had been a work camp during World War II for German prisoners. Loran was uneasy.

 

On our hike. With Ella’s history of not being very nice towards Alex, she should question when he feeds her wild berries. However, because “Alex is an okay guy”, she was trusting and very much rewarded with Gooseberries!

The Christys backpacking their babies – Hunter and Lillian

  

 

Thus began Ella’s love for numbered, interpretive trails.

 

One kiddo made it through a back swap and a cookie, the other one became dead weight.

Eventually, we had to make our way back for some lunch, which we all enjoyed together at Alex and Christy’s site. Then, it was nap attempt time. Lillian had sacked out on our walk in the carrier and decided to not nap, despite all Mommy removal and the fact that Ella passed right out. We let Ella sleep a little and then had Lily wake her up. 

After naps, snacks and bubbles, we then took off on another hike. This one featured the numbers 1-8 and the river. It was quite peaceful and beautiful. A good hike was had by all.

 

 

Ohhh…more numbers! She had fun finding each one, then tracing them. It was pretty joyful!

One child encourages his dad to jump into the river, the other…once again, dead weight.

After hiking, in true Gutt form, our family drove off to Rochester for dinner. We’ve learned over the years that we aren’t the best food makers while in the wilderness so it’s quite common to see the trail of dust settling over the other campsites as they prepare their dinners and we high-tail it out of there in search of some sort of warm dinner that doesn’t involve us preparing it. The Canadian Honker it was for us! We had a great meal and the girls did a wonderful job eating out – which is somewhat rare at this junction of parenthood. Once back, we joined Alex, Christy and Hunter for some campfire fun and songs. The girls were so joyful to sing and Alex and Christy had a great repertoire of songs, clearly putting this former preschool and Kindergarten teacher to shame when I could only produce: ‘Take me Out to the Ballgame’, ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ and ‘The Wheels on the Bus’. Once the sun had set and songs had been sung, we walked back to our site to settle everyone in. This night was much calmer at our site. Both girls went to bed easily and happily, probably dreaming of all of the fun we’d had earlier.

The overnight was cool and I kept waking up to check on Ella, who kept sliding out of her sleeping bag. I kept finding her in a ball and tried to sack her back up. Eventually, I gave up and stuffed her into my sleeping bag next to me. It was cozy and Chewy is still stinky. However, we both got more sleep and Ella was warm, despite someone setting of their car alarm at 6 am at a neighboring site, both girls slept through that. Ella was all smiles when we woke up and enjoyed cuddling. Or so I thought! Loran was asking her how it was to sleep with Mommy, to which she replied, “It was tewibble (terrible). Seeping wif Mommy is tewibble!” Thanks pal.

A pancake breakfast with coffee started our day and then we were out on our last hike. The last easy trail we hadn’t yet conquered. There were no numbers on this trial, much to Ella’s disappointment, but we still had a great hike along the river. Then it was back to the site to pack up our camp and head out – with a Chipotle stop along the way.

All the initial worry on how the trip would go proved to be a waste. The days/weeks of prep involved was tedious and made me appreciate all of those reward nights Loran earns at posh hotels. However, the preparations paid off and we had a great time. Ella spent the next few days upon our return playing “campsite” with Lillian and I was actually sad to leave our little plot of land away from home. I won’t lie, I shed some tears over the preparations and how much thought went into our trip. It was stressful and hard before we left, once we were gone, relaxation set in, and now that I’ve done it, I’d go again in a heartbeat. The calm of camping and the freedom of not having phone/internet reception was great. I’m excited to camp more with the girls as they grow and my only regret is that we didn’t go sooner with the two.

   

The river flowing behind our tent and our home away from home – which was luckily, one of the biggest and more secluded sites! yay!