Indiana Dunes Camping Trip

I am stealing internet from my parent's house currently. I am not ashamed to admit how addicted to it that I am. I missed my blog & have been dying to share our vacation with you. When I reserved our campsite I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I researched online tips & tricks to camping with an infant. Some of the things I read about & tried didn't work so well while others were big hits! I will share my own tips on camping with an infant later.

Let’s get on with the story & pictures shall we?

Our adventure started 2 days before we left for our trip. As you know, we had bought a house. Well, thanks to a few delays with the bank we ended up not being able to move until last Saturday. We had to rush to get a few friends to help us move because Seth had to work that day. (A huge shout out to those who helped!) It was a hot day for moving, but we got in finished before dinnertime! That’s a job well done if you ask me.

Monday morning Seth went to work for the day. Ryder & I had to unpack the house, clean, & pack for our trip. I realized that it was getting awfully hot in the house. After getting our air condition looking at we were told that it was a goner…awesome. Then not even an hour later our washing machine broke & flooded part of our laundry room. Welcome to home ownership!

Spoiler Alert!: The ac is fixed for now & we bought a new washing machine.

After living in the house while it was 85+ degrees for 2 days & nights absolutely sucked! After a long debate about how to pack the car, we were finally on the road by 9 Wednesday morning. Ryder did great! We had planned to stop a little over halfway to get lunch & let Ryder get out of the car. Of course we stopped at IKEA!!! I was in heaven, until I learning that we couldn’t buy much since the car was packed completely full. (I did manage to get quite a bit shoved into the car though ;) ) We arrived at the campground around 4. Luckily the tent was fairly easy to set up & it had plenty of room!! It was only 60 degrees & rainy the first day we were there so it was rather chilly & uneventful. We made dinner (hotdogs) & sat around the fire until Ryder got antsy.

After we went to bed is when the real adventure started. I knew that sleeping in a tent meant that I would be closer to nature, but I did not expect to wake up to a raccoon in my face (inside the tent) at 3 in the morning!! Who knew raccoons were smart enough to open zippers?! First we listened to it attacking & killing some poor animal for a couple hours. Around 3 in the morning I woke up to what sounded like Ryder playing with his toys. I turned around to see him cuddling with Seth (oh so cute). I sat up & looked around in the dark but the noise seemed to stop. So I laid back down. Not even a few seconds later I heard it again. This time I knew it was something in the other “room” of our tent. I sat back up & double checked that Ryder was indeed next to me, this time using the light of my phone. Sure enough there he was & the noise was still there. So I scanned the tent with what little light I had. And there it was, 3 feet from my sleeping bag. A shadowy figure on all 4’s bigger than Ryder! I froze, it froze, Seth sat up, Ryder sat up…I freaked! I started yelling in a whisper (didn’t want to scare the whole campgrounds) grabbed Ryder off the floor, threw him into the play yard that was next to me while Seth started making noise & turned on the small LED light we had with us. The raccoon ran out of the now widely unzipped doors & all that was left was a muddy mess & a crying confused baby. The boys fell back asleep rather quickly. I was wide awake! Around 4 I heard a scratching noise & turned the light on. Sure enough there was the bastard sticking his nose into the tent staring at me with his little beady eyes. I started throwing toys that were near me at him & he took quite a beating before running off. After that I used a keychain clamp to tie the zippers together. The raccoon never did come back that morning…although Ryder woke up at 4:30.

The weather was 52 degrees & foggy that morning. We did a lot of walking, playing with toys inside the tent, & ran into town to grab doughnuts & coffee. I learned that morning that I am not a Dunkin Donuts fan. We stopped by the beach to see the lake but found nothing but fog & mist. It looked picture perfect. Almost like we were looking at a painting! We had the brilliant idea to walk 1 of the trails through the park while Ryder slept in the stroller. Our goal was to see the boardwalk. Well after nearly 2 hours, lots of mud & mosquitoes & at least 3 miles, we reached the boardwalk & it was effing closed due to high water!!! So we turned around & hiked back. Not too much was going our way that morning. After lunch we headed into a neighboring town. I loved their downtown area! So many fun shops, a splash pad & it was 10 degrees warmer & sunny! We arrived to Valparaiso, IN in sweatshirts & quickly learned that it was nearly 80 degrees!

Our last night was a learning experience. We learned that Ryder doesn’t like to walk on the sand (not my child), cries when we shout “NO!” after he decided to eat a handful of sand, you cannot push a lightweight stroller through deep sand, the shower house scares Ryder, sometimes you just have to take a nap while walking around the campground & a raccoon will always remember where he once was able to break into a tent. That asshole came back around 1 in the morning. If you’ve ever seen Jeepers Creepers then you know what was going through my mind as we laid there & listened to him walk around & sniff every inch of the tent. He spent most of the night scratching, hoping to find a way back in. I had finally had enough around 3 & turned the light on to see where he was. Sure enough he had figured out how to get into the small screen hatch right above Ryder’s head & was pawing at him. So I face-palmed the little bastard & he finally ran off. Then Ryder was so kind to wake us up at 5.

At least it wasn’t a skunk.