Nice adventure pics with the family. I am envious of the open space so close to home.
"A short hike. Well, that might be an overstatment. A short walk."
Haha!! I know this well! It seems like we only get a few hundered feet at times. Kids are great at seeing so much anywhere they go. It reminds me of the times I have hiked and biked routes I normally drive and how different things seem at a slower speed.
One question: How do you keep your kids warm at night at higher elevations when the temp dips down?
I have wanted to buy a tent heater, but my wife laughs at me, but when my kids wake up in the tent cold or needing to hit the "potty" my wife wakes me up and says "can you deal with them"..... which I do while she goes back to sleep. I have wondered about modifying a RV heater or finding a Zodi (since they dont make them anym,ore for some reason) -
http://www.zodi.com/Consumer/zodihotvent.html . My kids would do sooo much better in a warm tent!
Very true about the kiddos seeing so much of their surroundings- I guess it's a bit different when most of it is a new experience for them. I've seen a lot of pine trees, deer tracks, and cow pies in my short time here but the girls never seem to tire of taking notice of them
Regarding keeping the kids warm, we've definitely had our struggles there too. The biggest battle we had was keeping Anna (our 2 yr old) in her sleeping bag. Seemed like no matter what we tried, she would wiggle out of it. It's even harder to stay warm when you're not covered.
I looked into some "heating blankets" that run off the 12v supply from the truck, but never ended up going that route. Basically a 48x60 lap blanket for the car. They can be found for about $20+ but I don't have a dual battery or power management system, so I didn't want to run my power down too far. Also thought about a power inverter with an actual electric blanket for a bed with temp controls and all. I think that might be the ticket. That Zodi is an interesting heater, I've never seen one of those before. I don't know though, I don't really like the idea of propane burning while I'm asleep.....maybe for a temporary heat source, but not all night.
Here's what we've wound up doing:
-Long underwear for the kids (good synthetic REI or otherwise) under a good warm pair of footie pajamas
-Fleece beanie hat (if they can keep it on)
-Thermarest ground pad
-Kelty youth sleeping bag (I think they're about a 30 degree bag)
-Fleece blanket over top of the sleeping bag.
The girls sleep in between my wife and I, so we each have one to keep an eye on and make sure they stay in their sleeping bag. The first night or two they had more trouble staying in the bag, but they've both gotten more used to it and don't unconsciously fight it as much. I think I sleep worse than they do, every time I stir I wind up checking to make sure they're still asleep.... That system has worked well so far. I don't think we've really dropped below freezing temps though. I think our tent helps- being that it's a smaller volume "backpacking" tent, there isn't as much air space to keep warm with our body heat and breath.
I think the biggest challenge is just getting out the door though. I've worked hard to consolidate and systemize all of our gear so that getting to the point that we're all in the truck takes a little less work. This past weekend, we started packing at 11:30am, fed the kids lunch while we finished up, we ate in the truck and pulled out of the driveway before 1pm, and the kids napped in the truck. We got home at about 2:30pm the next day, and I had everything unpacked and put away within an hour. It was awesome. To me, that's almost as much of a victory as getting out!
