Camping with Kids

[tallsteve]

Some very good reminders from our local Forest Service folks about camping with kids:

http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/uwc/news/2009/082109_kids_camping.pdf

[blueeyes]

Thanks!

I do all of thing listed with my kids but was still caught off guard this weekend. We were in Moab and it rained on us going down. One bag was a bit damp along with the blankets and towles packed in this bag. When we arrived we pulled the wet items out and layed them over the log fences at Slick Rock Campground. As I was hanging up the items I knocked down the broken webs so as not to get sticky icky web stuff all over my blankets I was going to sleep with. Later that night as the sun started to set, Spencer had his flashlight and was checking things out around camp. He inspected the new webs and spiders in them. YIKES!!!! They were Black Widows. He counted 6 just on the one fence. I got a pretty good pic of one too. Needless to say the blankets never made it into our tents.

The second nite we are sitting around the campfire and it is pitch black. I noticed from the shadow cast by the fire pit something BIG scurring towards my feet. I pulled my feet off the ground and Brian turned his flashlight on. It was a scorpion. NICE! Ok so he was just a little one, but that is just creepy thinking of what is crawling under your feet as you sit innocently by the camp fire.

It was another good reminder to me to remind the kids to shake out their shoes in the morning.

So we had a good long talk about dangerous critters you might find in Utah.

The only thing I have never thought of is teaching them about covering up with leaves.

I do play the scenario game with them. If you are hiking and get seperated from your group what do you do? Stay put! We had to go over this recently when Sarah went biking in Riverdale with some friends at the bike park. She became seperated and when they figured it out and went back to find her she was gone!!!! The poor dad freaked out. I have told her before but I guess biking in a near by neighborhood didn't translate over in her head from when we talk about it camping and hiking.

All I know is my Dad played the scenario game with us. Never had to use any of it as a kid and hope mine don't but I do think it is soooo important.

[greyhair biker]

I've camped with kids nearly all my life, if you count the millions of times I've gone with the boyscouts...actually kind of enjoy it :eek2: you never know just what is gonna happen and they nearly always discover something new to do at camp that you maybe never thought of.
Having said that...it's kind of nice to go camping without them once in a while :haha: