The Simple Life: Little Basin

One of the more random pregnancy cravings I've been having has been to go camping. Perhaps I'm giving too much credit to the pregnancy hormones but it does seem odd that a pregnant woman would want to go deep into nature, sleep on the ground and eat instant prepackaged food. Alas, I also realized that this was probably our only opportunity to do so before we had another baby on our hands. Camping with a toddler who is walking is doable - camping with a baby who is learning to crawl is out of the question. Not being totally crazy, we decided to call in the grandparents as reinforcement on this one which made the whole experience SO much easier and way more fun.

We wanted to go somewhere close in case of emergency or if we had a toddler meltdown so that limited our choices. My parents found a campsite called Little Basin which is just a few miles south of the beautiful Big Basin. It was once owned by HP and used as a retreat site for their employees but is now owned by the National Park system. It is perfect for car campers with kids as it has all the amenities you could need plus a large playground, sports fields and a nightly campfire and it's only an hour or so away from San Jose. Perfect!

Naturally we had forgotten just how much work it is to go camping - getting all your gear, food, clothes together etc., which was also compounded by me and my compulsion to over pack for everything. It was also hard to anticipate what we would need for Ellie. I imagined her getting really dirty so I packed a lot of clothes. All this to say that once we smashed everything into the back of our two cars you would have thought we would be gone for two weeks! It was all worth it once we arrived and she began squealing with delight. The girl loves to be outside so it was a big wonderland to her.

We spent our two days hiking around the campground, playing on the playground, relaxing by the fire, exploring Big Basin and visiting the ginormous redwood trees. We even saw a herd of deer wandering through our campground. On our last night there we attended the campfire and Ellie learned some camp songs. She even got a sticker for "answering" some trivia correctly! On a scale of 1-10 I would say she was about an 8. She did much better than I thought at being out in nature. She didn't try to eat any dirt, trash, insects and managed to stay relatively clean. She had a hard time falling asleep the first night but I don't blame her. Our campsite was right across from the bathrooms so it was very loud and bright until late at night. Once she fell asleep she did quite well snuggled between her parents. This is clearly a family friendly campground because there were kids in almost every campsite. It made for a very loud and boisterous camping experience! Ellie loved watching the comings and goings and being able to wander about. We were very glad to have Gramanina and Poppy there to help out! She loved walking over to the women's restroom and exploring the bridge near our campsite. She had a blast just being outside all day.

We had a great time and it was such a fun first experience to have with Gramanina and Poppy. Despite all the work it was actually very relaxing for me because I didn't have to follow Ellie around all day - Gramanina and Poppy were more than willing! I'm glad we decided to do it because it will likely be another year or two (or three) before we are ready to go again. I would really love to take the girls to Crater Lake like the trip we took with Ayala/Lopez/Camino/Parrish clan a few years back or to Yosemite. Such great memories!