Our son was 14 months and we hadn’t camped yet. Our intention was to go sooner but with constant monsoon rains and threats of landslides, there is no way we could have pulled it off before we did. We wanted to ease into it so we decided to camp on our balcony one Friday evening at the beginning of October.
We (meaning mostly my husband) set up the tent while I kept Eli from crawling on it. We ordered food, ate at the kitchen table for simplicity’s sake, and grabbed a basket to throw a few items in for the night.
- water bottles for everyone
- extra clothes for Eli
- a headlamp
- two fully-charged sound machines (we ended up using both)
- snacks
We set up our backpacking air mattresses and grabbed the cushion from his KidCo sleep tent to put between us for him to sleep on. He giggled and played for a while and was actually asleep by 8:00 pm, as usual. The temperature dropped a little so I covered him up as the night went on. He woke from time to time wanting to snuggle right up next to us. Despite a few vehicles honking in the late evening and some disturbances from street dogs, it was a remarkably peaceful night of sleep for all of us.
The next morning, we made a delicious breakfast of Turkish Eggs and Yogurt Sauce, my new favorite high-protein breakfast that I’m currently obsessed with.
After Eli’s first nap, we packed up a few items, drove 15 minutes, and went on a little family hike to a beautiful area complete with streams, goats, a horse, and of course more stray dogs. Eli is almost always perfectly content and happy in the Osprey Poco LT hiking backpack which makes outdoor adventures easy and fun for all of us.
He actually kept his sunglasses on for more than 5 seconds!
17 weeks and thankfully no sciatica pain like I felt at this time when pregnant with Eli.
Shepherdess watching over her goats.
Short Hike Stats
- Distance: 1.24 miles
- Elevation: 408 feet