We finally found a long weekend for our first road trip with Ruby.  If you’re not sure who Ruby is, check out this blog entry first and then come back…

What’s become a bit of a tradition is for Eugenia and I to take a solo trip with one of our boys (we alternate between Keaton and Mathew each time) which allows us to get some good, quality time together, uninterrupted from a sibling or another parent.  So while Eugenia and Keaton flew down to Disneyland to run a half-marathon this past weekend, Mathew and I took Ruby for our first road trip together.

We decided to venture only about 1 1/2 hours away to a State Park on the northern-most tip of Whidbey Island, Deception Pass.

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Here’s our weekend in two-and-a-half minutes…

So here are some of my takeaways from our first road trip.

  • With night-time lows of 24 degrees F, evenings were quite cold.  Fortunately, I did bring a radiator that we were able to use since I got a campsite with power.  However, the radiator was pretty bulky, taking up a lot of floor space and so I’ll be looking to install a Propex Heater in Ruby as my next upgrade.
  • There were two items that we found ourselves needing.  First, was a stove top ring reducer.  My stove top grill’s opening was too large for my small pot to securely fit on, and so I had to hold the handle of the pot pretty much constantly while cooking.  Second, was a proper kettle.  I used my small pot to boil water but given the types of food that you end up making during a camping trip, being able to easily boil water would add a lot of convenience.  Coffee, instant noodles, hot chocolate, dinner-in-a-pouch, etc.  I made two Amazon purchases when I got back to remedy both of these situations.  The kettle is pretty cool.  Silicon-made, it collapses into a very compact design for storage.
  •  Trade-off between privacy and proximity to bathroom.  We had primo choice in selection of our campsite given the cold weather.  While I thought about setting up camp in a private setting, far away from the bathrooms, after 3 night-time runs, I’m glad that we chose a site close-by.  Next time, I either refrain from drinking lots of water right before bed and choose a private site, or we take the convenience of a site near the bathroom and lose some privacy.
  • When the sun goes down, it gets pretty dark.  Mathew and I ended up playing cards (cribbage) for a few hours but were both in bed by 9pm.  Next time, we’ll need to bring a few more games.  It was a bit too dark to read, despite having 4 interior lights on throughout the evening.  We’ll have to install a few more lights to be able to read without any eye straining.

We had a very successful virgin camping trip in Ruby and are ready to go further, go longer and go on another road trip soon.