What I Learned From Our Easter Trip

If you are new to my blog, I welcome you to Day Hiker Grammie.  My blog as well as my YouTube and Facebook sites are about travel, hiking and camping.  Last weekend, my family and I spent Easter weekend camping at Lake Mineral Wells State Park.  It was a fun filled weekend that I enjoyed immensely.  I absolutely love camping and I think it's a shame that I discovered it so late in my life!  today's blog is going to be about our experiences out at Lake Mineral Wells and what I learned from it.

We arrived out at Lake Mineral Wells early in the afternoon on Good Friday and set up camp.  Luckily, we've had a little practice with this and we had some great help from my nephew so it didn't take long to get the camp in tiptop shape.  Since we still had plenty of daylight hours left, we decided to go hiking so we hit the trail.  Here are some great pics of the trail and the spectacular view from the summit.

Probably the most important lesson that I learned was to stay hydrated! The red trail we hiked that day is the most challenging of the trails out in the park and I did not drink enough fluids while on the trail.  Partly because I cleaned my water bladder with dish soap and it left an after taste that made the water less than appealing. Partly because the temperature was cooler and though by the end of the trail, I was a bit sweaty, it was only underneath the pack. It was deceptive and I paid for it.  I woke up the next morning with bad leg cramps in my upper thighs because I was pretty dehydrated and didn't realize it.

The next thing I learned was when the sun went down that first day.  The temperature dropped rapidly to the mid forties.  My grandson did not pack pants.  We ended up at the local Wal-mart to buy pants at 9 at night.  My advice: always double check what your children or grandchildren pack just to make sure they've brought the appropriate clothing.  Spring means both warm and cold weather gear and I guess someone forgot to tell him that. 

So the second day, I kind of figured out that my kitchen supplies were a bit lacking.  While the mini pots and multi-tool silverware we had are perfect for bug out bags, they aren't all that practical for a camping trip. Luckily, I brought along paper plates and plastic forks but we needed the more practical traditional plates and silverware for us to use. We also needed regular cups, a scrub brush for cleaning everything up and a way to dry them.  So my advice: pack a mini kitchen.  Everything you need at home is something you're going to need while you camp: hot pads, dish towels, a drain pad, a scrubber and a couple of tubs for washing and rinsing not to mention your dish soap that'll work well in cold water.  Also, bring those cups, plates, and silverware. You can buy some great ones at Academy, Walmart or on Amazon and I plan on investing in some pretty soon!

The other thing that I learned from this trip is that bug out supplies are not always practical when it comes to camping.  The cute little fire kits that I made with an empty altoids tin are not all that practical when it comes to camping.  You need some serious fire making skills to go along with your cotton ball and your matches!  My advice is to buy a fire pit for your backyard. Buy some firewood to go with it and then just practice, practice, practice!  It is a lot harder than you might think to get a fire going especially when your firewood is more green than seasoned.  If you don't have a torch handy then you're going to need some basic skills to get that fire going and keep it going.  We  were not successful in getting our fire going as we did not learn those skills ahead of time!

Lastly, I think I need a camping checklist to help keep me organized and to keep from forgetting something vital.  We made one too many trips to the local Wal-mart for forgotten items.  This trip we were still close enough to civilization to make that practical but next time, we might not be.  Definitely a plus to have a checklist so I'm going to work on making one for myself and I'll share it with you when it's done just in case you need one too!

I hope this helps you out with your own trip planning and I thank you very much for taking the time to ready my blog today.   Check out my videos on YouTube and my page on Facebook.  They all share my name: Day Hiker Grammie.  Your support is deeply appreciate.

Keep hiking,

Lisa