Journal
This was our first attempt at camping with our 1.5 year old son (at that time our oldest and only son J). Prior to having kids, we liked to do "psuedo" backpacking, where we hike just a short distance and pick a spot in the wilderness. We weren't crazy about car camping. However, we figured with a small kid in tow and all the things we'd need to pack, it'd be better to start off with car camping, and to pick a closer place. Hence, we settled on Veteran's Memorial Park in Monterey.
Daytime was not bad. We set up our stuff at the campsite and walked around exploring the beach and cliffs nearby.
Night time, however, was a completely different story:
9:30pm - Trying to rock J to sleep amidst all the neighboring noise and strange environment.
10:30pm - Still trying to rock J to sleep, in addition to J's fussing and crying now.
11:00pm - Finally got J to sleep in my arms inside the tent.. arm feeling very stiff.
11:30pm - J woke up crying due to noise outside.
12:00am - J still crying. Hubby trying to convince cousins to go home since the night is not looking so good for us. Cousins are like whaaaat?Â
12:15am - Hubby decides to take me and J home first and drive back to campsite afterwards so that cousins don't have to go home yet. Hubby starts packing up our stuff into the van.
12:30am - Hubby all done packing stuff into the van... J now quietly sleeping in my arms due to exhaustion.
12:31am - Me and Hubby look at each other, neither one wanting to wake up J trying to put him in the car seat, etc.
12:32am - Poor Hubby unloads everything back from the van and we carefully crawl back into the tent to sleep, with J still in my arms.
12:35am - Hubby snoring...very loudly.
1:00am - I finally drift off to sleep due to exhaustion.
1:30am - I hear someone opening the cooler outside and grabbing stuff to munch munch munch.. right next to my tent.. how strange.
1:35am - Can't be the cousins munching away.. I wake up Hubby and tell him to go check out what's going on outside.
1:40am - Hubby tells me big raccoons got into the cooler and took food out to munch. Hubby starts packing away all the food and put the coolers into the van.
1:45am - J wakes up crying due to all the noise Hubby is making.
2:00am - Finally got J to sleep again
2:01am - Hubby snoring..very very loudly
2:20am - I finally drift off to sleep.. arm very very stiff now.
3:00am - Loud ringing/shrieking noise outside... what the heck?? Raccoons back again? I wake up Hubby, Hubby goes out.. seems it's the lantern (we left it on) making all the noise. Go figure.
3:02am - J wakes up crying.. of course.
3:20am - J finally sleeping again
3:21am - Hubby snoring.. very very very loudly
4:00am - J decides to crawl way inside the sleeping bag, probably due to the cold air in the tent, so I have to keep lifting up the sleeping bag now and then to keep him from suffocating.
5:00am - Too tired to lift sleeping bag.. must have finally drifted off to sleep.
6:00am - Birds caw cawing outside.
6:01am - J wakes up crying, stops, and says "bird bird" in Chinese, then starts crying again.
6:05am - Got J to go back to sleep.
6:07am - Bird caw caws again, J wakes up saying "bird bird".
6:08am - Night is over. J is fully awake.