Cultus Lake

Camping with the Baby

Everyone told us we were crazy to go camping with a 4 month old baby. Maybe not everyone - my Mom took me camping when I was about that age, but my friends with babies thought I was nuts. Turns out it is doable - if you have enough stuff! We picked Cultus Lake because it's relatively close by - only an hour and half to get back to the city so if we failed badly it would take too long to get home. Cultus lake also has showers which makes people happy. Mark and Jeremy were game to join us so we had a trip!

So we got out to the camp site and disgorged the car. I setup our 10 person tent (no kidding) and Helen made sure the baby stayed warm. Mark and Jeremy arrived later in the evening but their puney two person tents took only moments to setup. We settle in to a little camp fire and started to enjoy camping.

That started a question - why go camping? The first part of the answer flapped it's way - to see wild life. An owl had skirted an edge of our camp site and setup pirch in a near by tree. I figure all the campers inadvertently feed mice and those mice are now feeding owls. The bird moved from tree to tree but was quite patient with me (and some invited guests) taking it's photo.

We retired to bed and had a good night. Turns out our 10 person tent (did I mention it can fit three queen sized beds and is larger than any room in our condo?) has lots of vents and not all of them can be zipped closed. We were effectly sleeping outside. Nara was fine - she had five layers of clothing on and she was warm everywhere when she woke up in the morning. Reason number two to go camping - kids love sleeping in tents. Nara really seemed to like looking at the tent. Perhaps it was the whole world being orange, or just the change from the usual, but she really like looking a the tent.

We got up and got on with our day. We had lots of gear - nice seats, a stroller that doubled as a bassenet and three different stoves. Jeremy cooked us pancakes and we got ready to see the world. Nara was surprised by bird sounds and spent a lot of time looking at trees.

Cultus lake has a "Saturday Market" in the park behind the gas station. We were on our way to the Chillwack farmers market but I figured why not stop in? There was some locally produced items and a little locally grown food but their was a big component of flea market meets beach toy shop. The juxtaposition really threw me off, but if you are looking for a traditional farmers market, maybe this isn't what you have in mind.

Turns out the Chilliwack farmers market was almost a no show - only 5 vendors and not much of a selection. We are spoiled in our choice in Vancouver (not as spoiled as Seattle though!) so I was a little dissapointed. We finished up the rest of our shopping and returned to camp.

Reason number 1 to take a baby camping. They make a great lap warmer! Nara slept in her pack and play, but she spent most of the days on someones lap. She really like the attention - we actually had some problems after the weekend because she got used to so much holding. Perhaps a little spoiling once in a while is a good thing.

I'm really not a fan of camp fires when camping. I like trees - not wood on fire. I don't like smoke. I don't find them particulaly warming (put on a tuque). I'm not a fan of roast marshmellows so that burning sugar on a stick thing doesn't do much for me. We took a vote - turns out I'm entirely wrong - everyone else loves camp fires and a nice camp fire is their number one reason for camping. My bad.

Would you drive an hour and half to go to Minigolf? I didn't think so. How about 5 minutes down the road? Perhaps the last great advantage of camping is the location - a home base to make exploring a new part of the world easier.