The Thud of Falling Leaves

Misadventures on my first camping trip with my kids

 

     The summer after I left the home and wife with whom I’d spent the last decade, I decided the time was ripe to finally take my kids, two-year-old Zachary and four-year-old Courtney, camping for the first time in their lives. 

     While planning for the trip, I remembered fondly the dozens of camping and backpacking trips I’d taken with my Dad as part of a Boy Scout Troup. It’s funny how we remember things – the feeling of eager anticipation while preparing for the adventure that lay ahead, the musty smell of my canvas backpack after taking it down from the garage rafters and filling it with only the barest essentials, the last remaining minutes before slumber laying in my sleeping bag, staring up at the sparkle of stars in the night sky, listening to the muted sounds of the forest. 

     Memory encapsulates past events in an ethereal light – filtering out the bad, leaving only the good. I still vividly recall the creek of icy rainwater flowing through my tube tent in the middle of the night, deep in the woods, while I lay rigidly in a puddle of sponge-like Dacron that clung against my damp skin. My tent mate Brian, who was one of the toughest kids in our school, cried out in the darkness of night, “Daddy!” but I told him his Dad wasn’t there and to go back to sleep. We were discovered near hypothermic in the early morning, shivering and wet. The rain continued for four straight days on that backpacking trip, soaking our clothes and gear, and testing the patience of the most die hard Scout. Despite this recollection, I still kept such fond memories of my childhood camping experiences that I felt I needed to introduce the idea to my two little ones at the earliest opportunity.

     This would be my first camping trip as the parent, as the one who would occupy the role proudly bestowed upon my father all those years ago. As I started planning I began to wish I’d paid more attention back then. My Dad and the other Scoutmasters prepared everything – I just had to make sure I had enough socks and underwear for myself (as if I seriously planned to change them; most 10-year-old boys don’t unless prodded!) 

     The kids’ mother, as I was now taken to calling her, hated camping – hated the idea of being in the dirt, sleeping on the bumpy, unyielding forest floor amongst the bugs and wild animals. I boo-hooed her – this was the spice of life. Now that we were separated, there would be no good reason for me not to follow-through. So, my planning started in earnest.

     I don’t enjoy planning. I prefer things being planned. There’s a big difference. Fortunately, due to their ages, Courtney and Zachary wouldn’t know what I did wrong – the eternal grace of childhood ignorance. I bought a cheap tent, picked up a camp stove (hopefully getting the right kind of fuel), bought two sleeping bags that would zip together, and a big fluffy air mattress to repudiate the assumption of discomfort.

     Reservations confirmed and dates set, I started with the first pangs of nervousness at what I was doing. One adult taking two kids under five years old anywhere realizes the uncertainty that comes with planning any type of activity, let alone an overnight jaunt. Zachary was still in diapers and prone to pick up and eat anything that looked interesting! The kids’ mother asked me repeatedly if I really wanted to do this. I did, I repeated confidently. There was no backing out. 

     I planned two nights at Fallen Leaf Lake Campground, near Lake Tahoe’s Emerald Bay. The campground was civilized, not like the bathroom-less hiking trails I’d taken as a kid. If anything didn’t work out, I could throw everything back into the trunk and head home. To keep the kids from being bored, I checked events in the area and discovered there was, on the same weekend, the Great Hot Air Balloon Races in Reno – a mere hop, skip and jump from Lake Tahoe. Kids and balloons! Couldn’t get any better than that, I thought – this was going to be a trip to remember.

     “We’re going camping, we’re going camping!” Zach and Courtney chanted while jumping up and down on my bed. I’d set the alarm for 6:30 the morning of our departure, but the kids had beaten the alarm by a good thirty minutes. The purply turquoise morning sky was visible through the slats of my blinds, eclipsed only by the orangey artificial glow of the Union 76 globe from the gas station next door. 

     I’d been out of our home for six months and within six seconds of waking up I was reminded again of my singleness. Over the previous nine years, I’d been focused on moving forward in life. We’d purchased two new cars and moved into three houses – each more pricey and elaborate than the last, traveled to Europe twice, gone through umpteen job changes and promotions, produced two beautiful children to complete the picture and then suddenly plop, here I was in this tiny apartment, alone. 

     The walls of the sparse apartment were bare, except for the framed poster that had been banished from the walls of our home three years before, having been replaced by original art works.  The ceiling was covered in acoustical cottage cheese, probably littered with trace asbestos waiting to fall into my face while I slept. The tired carpeting had been cleaned before I moved in, but maintained the faint aroma of pet urine when damp. I had no dresser, so I stored my clothes as well as the kids’ in the linen closet in the hallway outside my door. The floor of my bathroom, just eight feet from the bottom of my bed, creaked audibly when I stepped in to use the toilet in the middle of the night – only mildly louder than the groan of my bed springs when I returned to slumber after I finished. 

     I felt defeated, my stomach tightened by the same feeling of dread I’d been carrying since the separation. Each time I picked the kids up or dropped them off, I watched the smug condescension of their mother as she sat in warm luxury in the beautifully furnished home we’d purchased with my income. I was becoming more aware each day of my building resentment.

     The kids, clueless to my internal pain, continued to bounce on my bed, excitement spread across their exuberant faces, and I found myself smiling.

     “Aaargh!” I yelled, spontaneously grabbing a kid in each arm. They shrieked as I pulled them down next to me onto the bed. “Imunna gitcha!” I growled, tickling them wildly.

     Zach howled in laughter, while Courtney screamed, “Stop it, Daddy!” But their faces told me otherwise.

     And I knew immediately I was doing a good thing.

     I had already laid out sleeping bags, the tent, clothes, blankets and pillows, which were piled in the middle of the living room floor. We padded down the stairs, and I popped a couple of frozen waffles into the toaster, then laid their plastic plates on the table, emblazoned with pictures of the characters from the movie Toy Story. 

     The two walls adjacent to the table were covered from floor to ceiling with hand-drawn artwork, created by the kids each day while at preschool or in the evenings at the table. Scores of the multi-colored construction paper were held in place with Scotch tape; it was a garish mess, and it was my favorite room in the apartment. Courtney was an incredibly prolific artist – each day I picked them up, she would proudly hand me several new drawings and watch as I enthusiastically added them to the wall gallery.  

     The kids rolled on the pile of sleeping bags and clothes while I poured their milk, spread butter across their waffles, cut them up into bite-sized pieces, and then spread thick maple syrup across them.

     “Court, Zach, breakfast!”

     I started up the stairs while they continued wrestling in spite of my announcement. 

     “Now!” I commanded, and they hustled toward the table. 

     After a thorough shower, I pulled together toiletries, made sure I had an ample supply of diapers, baby wipes, towels and anything else in the apartment that wasn’t nailed down, and carried it out to the car in no less than twenty trips. In the last of which, I made Courtney go to the bathroom, gave Zach a new diaper and buckled everyone into the car. Behind me, the kids could barely move with the ice chest sandwiched tightly between their car seats. Both the trunk and the passenger seat were crammed with camping essentials. Though I’d packed everything on my list, I dreaded those few items Murphy’s Law dictated I was forgetting.

     I was able to get some good naps out of both kids on the way up, though I had wisely prepared enough finger food in the car to cater a small wedding, out of fear they’d have a need I couldn’t fulfill on our way up to the mountains. I peeked into the rearview mirror as I passed the small town of Strawberry along Highway 50 and tilted it down to inspect them behind me. Both were sound asleep, cheeks pushed awkwardly against the shoulder restraints, with two thumbs protruding from two little mouths.

     As I continued winding up the freeway toward Tahoe, I found myself feeling nervous excitement about the trip. As a young boy, I would sit quietly while my Dad drove us to our camping destinations. I was excited then too, but knew my Dad was fully in charge – he knew where we were going, and would remember every little planning detail before we left. I just had to stay strong enough to keep up with him while we hiked, and tried to look forward to our arrival at the campsite, so I could drop my pack and wander off into the woods with my friends. I realized the kids probably felt that same way about our trip. 

     My mind wandered to one morning a month earlier when I’d developed a stomachache and went to lie down, exhausted by my new solo parenting responsibilities. The last few months had been a surreal blur. Though my world had been turned on its head by our separation, I kept plugging away at each moment, trying to do the right thing, but feeling bereft of a barometer that would tell me whether I was doing it. I’d been laying on my bed a short while feeling overwhelmed and drained when Courtney, my sensitive four-year-old, came over to me with a glass of water.

     “Here Daddy” she said, handing it to me. “This’ll make you feel better.”

     I smiled. “You make me feel better, Courtney.”

     “Yeah” she responded, “but the water does too!”

     “Come here” I said, pulling her closer for a hug. I looked into her eyes. “You brought the water, and that was very sweet of you.”

     “Yeah, I was drawing the sun and then thought ‘Oh!’ and went and brought you the water like you do with me.” She gave me a quick kiss and then scurried back out of the room to continue playing with her dolls.

     Behind me, she stirred and began to wake up. I caught her eye in the rear-view mirror and gave her a wink.

     As we came into view of Lake Tahoe a short while later, I pointed it out to the kids. “Hey guys, that’s where we’re going camping!” I waited a moment, but they said nothing. I tilted my rear-view mirror down again so I could see their faces, and both were staring silently through the window with thumbs in their mouths. They knew.

     The campground was how I imagined it. As soon as I pulled into our spot, Courtney, the self-appointed spokesperson of the two, informed me very directly, “We’re hungry!” So, while they ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the wooden picnic table, I deftly pulled out all our gear and began the painstaking process of setting up camp.

     I’d just finished putting up the tent when little Zachary trotted over to the tent and, with his hands and mouth covered in peanut butter and dirt, proceeded to enter our sleeping area. 

     “Zacky!” I said, watching his dirty, gleeful smile. 

     “What?” he said in his tiny voice.

     “Come with me.” I walked over to my backpack and rifled through it until I found my camera. “Give me your biggest, meanest smile!” He happily obliged.

     After touring our campsite I realized the kids couldn’t just sit in the dirt to play with their toys, so while I pondered how to entertain them, they found great delight in setting up “house” in the tent until I finally had an idea. 

     “Hey guys, want to go to the beach?”

     “Ocean water?” Zach asked.

     “Nope. C’mon, let’s get your suits.” Across from the campground entrance and down the road about a mile was an entrance to Pope Beach on Lake Tahoe. Again, I packed up all of their necessities, changed Zach’s diaper, took Courtney to the bathroom, and drove to the beach entrance. Before we got out of the car, I dug out the sunscreen and smothered each of them with it, then saddled myself with a bagful of towels and beach gear and walked from the parking lot to the sands with both kids in tow. The beach was moderately busy, which meant we had to walk down a bit to find a spot. The kids were both pretty excited and ran ahead of me to the sands. 

     History should have told me that just because Courtney had always been extraordinarily cautious and careful, her brother wouldn’t necessarily follow her lead. Since she was a toddler, Courtney didn’t want to go down the slides, didn’t want to climb the ladders, wanted help being lifted, and generally just played the role of a fragile little girl. Not so with Zachary. He stood at an early age, walked early, jumped and fell early. He had scabs and skin abrasions from as young an age as I can remember – the result of his risk-taking demeanor. So, it shouldn’t have surprised me that before I had a chance to set down the blanket and towels in my hand, Zach would walk straight down the beach and into the water, right in over his head. He sunk like a rock.

     In a fraction of a second, I bounded toward him and snatched him out of the water as he sputtered and cried in disbelief. I hugged him to my shoulder and comforted him as he bawled against the injustice of it all.

     “Zacky, what’re you doing?” I said to him as he started to gather his wits. “That’s water, buddy! You don’t know how to swim yet, you have to wait for me!”

     Poor Zachary was in another dimension; one in which no body of water would ever treat him so rudely.

     “Hey Zacky, want to get buried in the sand?” Courtney asked, and Zach stopped crying immediately.

     First we covered him in sand, so that only his little head was sticking out, and then returned the favor for her. Zach had taken to practicing his somersaults at home on the carpet, so he tried them again on the beach, only to imbue his now-dry wavy blonde hair with grit.

     “Ready to go in the water again?” I asked.

     “Yeah,” Zach replied.

     “Nope,” Courtney responded.

     This time, I made him wait until I’d waded up to my waist in the water first, then stood between Zach and the deeper water behind me, which seemed to suit him just fine. Knowing I was standing before him as a human buoy let him know his boundaries. He splashed and jumped in the crisp water, while Courtney lay demurely on her beach towel watching us with disinterest.

     Back at the campsite, the afternoon had moved toward early evening, so I started pulling out my cooking gear, readying to feed the three of us. Macaroni and cheese was one of their favorites, so it was a simple matter of boiling the pasta and mixing in the cheese sauce. I realized I had no milk or butter to mix with it, and was thankful they would be too young to notice. I figured I’d have them fed before dark. Barely. 

     They were both nervous as we walked over to the bathrooms fifty yards away in the dark to wash their hands and faces, then headed back to get them into their pajamas and start a fire with the Duraflame log I’d brought along to simplify the campfire experience. I knew better than to think I’d be able to rub two sticks together to get us started. We roasted messy marshmallows, went back to the bathrooms to wash their sticky hands and faces, and then tucked them together into the doublewide sleeping bag I’d arranged for us in the tent.

     At home, we had a habit of reading every night, so I was prepared with half a dozen books and a battery-operated lantern to read by. I climbed in between them and they snuggled against me as I read “Go Dog Go”, “The Going to Bed Book” and “Goodnight Moon.” They were asleep before I read the last lines, “ . . .Goodnight stars, Goodnight air, Goodnight noises everywhere.” I waited several minutes, then peeled myself out from between them and felt my way through the darkness to the picnic table, where our dirty dishes and pots still waited my dishwashing prowess. I was missing my Dad more by the minute.

     I had researched the Great Reno Balloon Race and knew that to take full advantage of seeing the regatta of colorful hot air balloons, I’d need to get there before dawn the next morning. The literature said at that early hour, glowing balloons are illuminated and ascend in unison to choreographed music as the sun rises behind them. It sounded wonderful. I fully knew it would be a challenge getting the kids up, but this was an once-in-a-lifetime experience, so I had to do it.

     The sun was supposed to rise around six-thirty, and I thought it would take me about a half hour to forty-five minutes to get there, so I planned to get us up by five. I was able to find a cheap alarm to wake us up and set it before I snuggled in between the kids sometime after midnight.

     Now, before we left, I had actually set up the tent in the living room of my apartment, because I had to make sure it would work. What I didn’t do before this point in time was actually lie down inside it. I am six foot and one inch tall. So was the tent, apparently. I did my best to scrunch, but with a kid plastered against me on either side and tent fabric pressed against my feet and head, I managed to easily wake up before my alarm went off, if I slept at all. The kids, on the other hand, were soundly asleep. I got up, packed them into the car while they gazed at me with drowsy eyes in the early morning darkness and resumed their dreaming without missing a rapid eye movement. 

     Being on the other side of the lake from Reno, I had to pick a route and decided to go through South Lake Tahoe. Now, this isn’t a big stretch of town, but it took nearly all of my predicted travel time just to get through Stateline, Nevada – probably five miles away. Gamblers never sleep. The sun had been up an hour before I completed the 65-mile, nearly two-hour trip and found myself in view of the regatta of balloons that had already ascended from Rancho San Rafael Park on the northern part of Reno. I drove around for another thirty minutes before finding a place to park in a nearby residential neighborhood and pulled two cranky kids from the car to go look at the massive hot air balloons. By this point, I was determined to make this a fun event, but was beginning to have my doubts.

     We spotted a large colorful hot air balloon that had already landed on the ground and headed toward it. I wanted the kids to be able to see up close the kind of transportation used by the Great Wizard of Oz. I held a small hand in each of mine as we strode toward the behemoth. I could sense their hesitation as we neared it. 

     Suddenly a blast of noise from the fire rocketed toward us and Courtney screamed. Zach followed. They quickly buried their heads in my arms as the fire blasted again and I rubbed their backs to console them.

     “It’s okay, guys. That’s the way the big balloon fills with air,” I said patiently.

     “I wanna go home!” Courtney said, catching her breath between tears.

     “Baby, we drove all the way here to see the balloons.”

     Another fire blast.

     “I wanna go home!” she said again, as her brother joined her in her tears.  

     I stood up and took their hands. “Tell you what,” I said, “Let’s find a quieter balloon.”

     Around us were dozens of balloons on the ground, with more still up in the air over our heads. “Look up there!” I said, pointing to one, as I tried to get them excited about the sight.

     “Di’saur!” Zachary announced, as he pointed to a large balloon in the distance in the shape of a green Barney.

     “And look, a witch balloon, Courtney!” I added, to a gradually less reticent four-year old.

     We walked amongst the fairgrounds and took photographs of a gold Kangaroo balloon with a man in the pouch normally reserved for the joey, one in the shape of the little old lady who lived in a shoe as well as dozens of other colorful balloons, all of which kept the kids attention for at least twenty minutes. 

     Off in the distance, I spotted the attraction I knew would get them excited the most – the playground. As soon as they spotted it, they both took off running toward the contraption, where we spent the next two hours.

     Knowing they would have to eat and take naps, I finally coaxed them from the equipment and drove to a nearby park, where I pulled out a picnic lunch and we ate on a blanket while they continued running around until I knew it was time for the drive back. This time, I knew the drive would take a couple of hours, so I stretched, then buckled them in, stopped for gas and pulled onto Highway 395 to head south toward Carson City, through south Tahoe and back to our campsite. 

     It was a hot late summer day, so the kids fell asleep quickly in their car seats while I started down the freeway at full speed. Suddenly, I heard a loud bang and the car swerved sharply. With a loud flapping sound echoing through the car, I held tightly onto the steering wheel and muscled the vehicle to the side of the road, coming to a stop on the shoulder. Beside me, the freeway traffic whipped by as I waited for it to die down.   

     As soon as there was a break in the traffic, I climbed out and checked to see what had happened. The right rear tire was completely blown out – jagged strands of rubber jutting out from under the fender. I stood and quickly surveyed my surroundings. I had managed to stop on an elevated portion of the freeway, high above the landscape below. The next exit was too far away to drive on the now-destroyed tire. I leaned against the trunk and tried to figure out what to do, while the warm current of air from the passing cars blew against my face.

     Though I didn’t want to admit it, I began to feel sorry for myself. This was surely a punishment for what I was going through - one more reminder that I was in over my head, a clear testament of my inadequacies. I took a deep breath, then opened the trunk, which was crammed full of picnic gear, and started unpacking to get to the spare. I’d just recently purchased the car and didn’t know what to expect. So, after I dug around and couldn’t find a tire iron, I tried not to panic. There were two things for which I was immediately thankful. First, the kids were still asleep. Second, I owned a cell phone.

     I leaned against the concrete median as I waited for the tow truck, hoping the drivers flying by me knew how to steer. I glanced down at the colorful stack of blankets, the ice chest and picnic gear piled on the shoulder behind the car and had to laugh.

     Twenty minutes later, I was met by the tow truck and we were able to replace the damaged tire with the wimpy spare intended for a Vespa. I didn’t miss the irony of the driver’s statement that I was lucky the blowout was on the right side of the vehicle and not on the left where the traffic was. I thanked him, paid the bill, and climbed back into the car. I glanced behind me – my two beautiful children were still asleep. Not until I pulled into a tire shop, and had to go inside to wait while they installed a new full-sized tire on the car did I wake them. We sat groggily watching the television in the waiting room of the tire store until they finished.

     Two hours later, we returned to our campsite. Now well rested, Courtney and Zachary were teeming with energy and wanted to immediately go exploring. As I wandered through the campground with my two new campers, dirty and exhausted, I couldn’t help but catch their infectious energy as they climbed through the brambles and tossed rocks into the icy lake. After taking a photograph of the two of them down by the water, Courtney turned to me.

     “Daddy, let me take your picture too!”

     I smiled. “That’s okay, sweetie. I have pictures of you two.”

     She scowled. “But how are we going to know you were with us!”

     I thought for a moment. I realized I was really just concerned she would damage the camera. Zachary looked up at me, and I scooped him into my arms, while handing Courtney the camera.

     “Take our picture, Court. Thank you.”

     As she aimed the camera at the two of us, I wondered whether we were even in the frame – four-year-olds aren’t known for their photography skills. But who cared? I was here with the two little people I loved most in the world, and if she took a picture of the sky, I knew I would be just as happy.

     The drive back home was quiet and I wasn’t exactly sure of the kind of reception I’d get when I delivered them back to their mother’s house the next day. We arrived and they played in the house, while I took another dozen trips between the car and the apartment, unpacking our supplies. As I trekked with armloads of luggage, I realized I’d spent nearly 90 percent of my time in some type of preparations during the 48-hour camping trip.

     The next day, I brought the kids back to their mother’s house and prepared myself for a reminder of how foolish I’d been to take them along with me at all. I was certain they’d tell her of Zach’s near drowning, their fear of the dark, the scary balloons or the unplanned trip to the tire store. I pulled into the driveway and they both took off running toward the front door. As she opened the door, they jumped into her awaiting arms as I trudged behind them, waiting for the fallout.

     “Did you have a nice time?” she asked.

     “Yes! Mommy, camping was fun!” they answered with blissful enthusiasm.

     For the next fifteen minutes, they filled their mother’s ears with excited stories of their trip, retold and embellished our adventures, and then let me know how much they couldn’t wait to go again. Their mother caught my eye. It was not a look of triumph, but of acquiescence.

     As I walked back toward my car and then drove quietly home to my empty apartment, it occurred to me they had described the same feelings I’d had as a boy when I went camping with my Dad.

     And I knew I’d done a good thing.

Reviews

[Zeek4]

What a treasure this story will be when your children read this as adults.