Last camping trip of 2016!

The girls and I ditched Cook and went on a car-camping trip. I learned some stuff: 

1) Driving still sucks.

2)  Camping is more fun when ALL your meals are prepared over the fire (preferably with no dishwashing necessary).

3) Audiobooks are awesome - preventive of carsickness in the car, promoting of peace at the campsite when the kids are bickering.

4) S'mores don't have to involve a graham cracker. In fact, it's best if they don't. (I made this when the kids were listening to audiobooks and I was left to my own devices. I didn't bring any books, and had to entertain myself with marshmallows.)

5) Sand castles can be made even when it's 60 and rainy.

6) A lot of the interactions between Skipper and Duchess play out sort of like this:

Skipper attempts to persuade Duchess to play with her. Duchess is adolescently skeptical but is eventually persuaded to participate.

It was damp, sandy, and cold. We inhaled a lot of woodsmoke and ate a lot of sand. We and all our stuff came home wet and filthy. We missed Cook. I read something recently about the effect of curated vacation photos on social media - how we are all at least a little jealous of each other's perfect vacations and feel bad about how ours seem to have a lot more whining, frustrations and missteps than other people's. Don't be jealous of mine - it was far from perfect. There was a lot of yelling and tantruming and whining and selfishness and general jerky behavior, and the weather was also quite poorly behaved. But we had such a good time that it was even worth the driving, and that's saying a lot.