Camping with a toddler (part 1)

It was fun! We survived and it was fun. We went camping with Clay twice before, but he was not walking or crawling yet. This was the 2nd annual memorial camping trip for John Taylor. He was my husband's friend, mentor and best man at our wedding. He was like family to us. Johnny wanted to be scattered among the redwoods. Let's just say he got his wish. Now we go camping around his birthday with his family and 'Chuckie'. Frank, his older brother, built Chuckie years ago when he and his girls first started camping. Chuckie is a modern day chuck wagon designed for camping. On one side panels fold down to reveal cooking utensils, spice rack, pots and pans, cutting board and a surface to put the camp stove. The other side folds down to a wash area complete with a sink (just add boiling water). The top is covered with a trap for protection from the rain. The middle is used for storage. Chuckie is hitched to the back of a truck, backed into the camping space, opened up and is ready for business. For many years Chuckie went to Yosemite. People would stop and give Frank coffee orders, thinking that it was a drink cart! Chuckie is painted in camouflage to blend in with his surroundings. He also bears the mark of every time he has been camping with campfires stenciled on his side panel. So needless to say, Frank was our chef for the trip. Chuckie is so well equipped that Frank has never once made a hamburger with him. Over the course of this trip we had pumpkin ravioli, broccoli salad, zucchini pancakes, mushroom omelets, and blueberry pancakes. Not the camping food I grew up on! We use two sites when camping. Frank has a tent with cots that his family uses. Johnny's sons use two smaller tents. His daughter along with her almost 4 year old boy, 2 month old daughter and husband have a pop up camper on their truck. And we have a gigantic tent. I am not kidding. This tent is so large that I am almost embarrassed to put it up for only 3 people. We acquired the tent we were going on our babymoon to Mount Lassen. I was almost 8 1/2 months pregnant and my DH would not let me sleep on a mat. In fact he went out and bought an expensive queen size double air mattress (that popped two years later). The mattress was so large that it did not fit in our 3 man tent. So we had to buy a tent to fit the mattress. We were in Costco one day and hanging from the ceiling was a 9 person tent. My husband's heart went all aflutter as he rationalized that we could use it for the whole family and take our nieces and nephews camping with us, plus the insisted upon mattress would fit in it. Some battles you can't win, that was one of them. The babymoon was an amazing experience and I slept wonderfully. Which brings us back to present day with me setting up a 9 person tent for 2 adults and a toddler. Chateau la Ruck.