First Camping Trip

We took Audrey on her first big camping trip this weekend. She technically has been camping before, but she was still known as "Baby Steffen", and she didn't really get to enjoy the views.

The plan for this weekend was for our friend Dave to kayak 22 miles of the San Rafael River through the San Rafael Swell. He was to start late in the afternoon on Friday and arrive at the San Rafael Bridge Campground mid-day on Saturday, about the same time that three of our other friends were going to arrive.

The minimum flow for kayaking the river is 120 cubic feet per minute. Therefore, the 20 cubic feet per minute that the river was flowing at was not enough for our original plans to work. Instead, Dave joined us at the campground on Friday night.

Kelly and I left a little early to both make sure we would get a spot and that we could do the 3.5 hour drive and get our tent set up before Audrey's bed time. And since this was our first outing with Audrey's new gigantic tent, we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time.

The tent had all the comforts of home: A good floor, a good roof, lots of toys, a crib, and her bumbo. Add an awesome view, a river to dip her feet in, lots of bugs to look at, and all the grass and dirt she could eat--Audrey was definitely enjoying herself.

If there was one thing to complain about, it was the heat. The closest forecast we could find called for temperatures in the low 80s--warm, but manageable. Instead, 96 degree heat was waiting for us which meant staying cool was priority number one. With about three gallons of baby sunscreen, we were able to venture out of the shade once in a while, the most adventurous outing being a 4+ mile hike up and down the San Rafael River.

Nighttime sleeping was fairly painless and Audrey did great in her crib. Napping was a little more difficult when the sun was beating down on us so she had to relearn how to sleep in the car. That meant the remainder of our sightseeing and napping was centered around the air conditioning in our car.

Aside from the typical Utah vistas, the area is loaded with petroglyphs (chiseled rock), and pictographs (painted rock). It is pretty amazing standing next to art created thousands and thousands of year ago.

To cap off our trip, armed with only GPS coordinates we found a dinosaur footprint in a rock bed overlooking the road. We took the obligatory hand in print picture before heading home. I couldn't help but think that we were at some prehistoric Mann's Chinese Theater and this particular dino was a famous dinosaur movie star back in the day. Maybe he was friends with Fred Flintstone.

All-in-all, it was a very successful trip. Audrey learned to sleep outdoors, she seemed to have lots of fun, and she didn't get sunburned. We're definitely confident enough to try it again, soon.