Our First Family Camping Trip

As D mentioned in his previous post, we want to make camping one of our family traditions. This past weekend was our first trip, and it went pretty well. We went to Malibu Creek State Park with my sister and her husband. There was some traffic early Saturday afternoon, but we still arrived around 1:30 p.m., half an hour before the official check-in time. They let us check-in, but it took a while to find a suitable campsite since the one we were assigned was taken. We ended up with #39, which ended up OK. It was semi-private since there was no one immediately on either side of us. However, there was almost no shade whatsoever. Instead, there was a big bush which seemed to attract a lot of bees--not fun. k found out firsthand how annoying bees can be (before she just knew them as cute creatures in her picture books that go "bzzz".

We set up camp (well, everyone else did...I mostly watched k). Then, we went for a hike. It was hot out so we didn't get too far.



The Santa Monica Mountains (I think)

Parts of the creek bed were dry, prompting D to comment, "Maybe Al Gore is right." Or, maybe it is just summertime.


We reached the Visitor Center at 3:58, but it had already closed for the day (closing time was supposed to be at 4:00).


Right next door to the Visitor Center was a vivid reminder of the high fire danger in the park. When we were there, the fire danger level was only yellow. Thank goodness we weren't there July 4th weekend when they had to evacuate the campers due to a mobile home that caught fire.