Jeff and I have been talking about taking Sophie camping for a few months now, and Sunday, we finally got our act together and heading off to the Russian River Valley in Sonoma. We're getting pretty good about putting Sophie in the car just in time for her nap - it buys us a solid amount of driving time, and makes these trips a lot easier. We hadn't booked a campsite, and since it was Labor Day weekend, I was a little nervous. We got to the general area, and Jeff had about 3 different campsites we could check out. As we were driving, I had looked out at a beautiful bend in the river, complete with a small beach, and wistfully stated, "I wish we could just camp right there." We kept driving though to our first couple campsite locations. Both were full. We decided to head back because we had passed one that was apparently off the road a little (and hopefully unnoticed by the crowds as well). We took the turn, drove down the rocky road (Sophie loved that), and pulled into the parking lot. It was open! We picked a spot, and Jeff sent me off with Sophie in the Kelty backpack to explore. I took a short little trail, and viola! We walked out to the exact river bend I had pointed to from the road! When we had finished setting up, we took Sophie down to the river, and let her splash her feet a little. It was super cold, but didn't bother her much - she LOVES the water!
All in all camping was pretty easy, and a lot of fun. Jeff and I are still looking for a real child-sized sleeping bag, but we used super warm jammies and a fleece quilted sleep sack this time, which worked well. It was chilly at night, but even time I checked, Sophie seemed to be warm and snug. In the morning, Sophie had a lot of fun playing in the tent, which because a giant playpen. Jeff and I took some great pictures, so we'll post those as soon as we can. We haven't yet crossed into the multi-media blog... but ideally we can post some pictures, and maybe even some short movies to make this really interesting. I promise to let Jeff post too - he's much less verbose than I am.