QuestionMark

Howdy folks.

We're back from our first time camping. One night at Stephen Austin State Park. Close enough to home but a nice enough park. We chose a water-only tent site. The park was nice...bath house was very clean. Attentive park staff/volunteers.

Had a good time...picked up a PETT toilet before we left for our 4-year old in the middle of the night. It came in handy and worked like a charm. Generally everything went fine except for right when we put our son to bed he starts to complain -- bad -- about an ear ache. :rolleyes: So we had to leave everything where it was in the dark and drive from the park to a walmart about 8 miles away to get some ear meds and children's tylenol. It did the trick and the ear didn't bother him any more.

A few things we learned/realized:

1. Bring extra medications -- especially for the kid. We had some basics but didn't think of pediatric stuff.

2. Our checklist did almost perfect in terms of making sure we had what we needed, but we didn't focus enough on activites and especially things to keep the 4-year old occupied. We could've used a deck of cards.

3. I wasn't very comfortable sharing the queen airmattress with my wife. I'm 6'4" and found that I just didn't have much room. I didn't get a lot of sleep and having to get up a time or two at night to use the restroom wasn't easy in the tent, on the floor, trying not to step on the family, etc.

We've been looking at RVs a lot lately and I think this trip, if nothing else, has helped us solidfy our desire to purchase an RV. I think being able to enjoy the outdoors and then retire into a cozier RV is more our tastes. Additionally, we'd like to not be bound by the weather as much and the RV would allow us to camp in the south all year long. But that doesn't mean we aren't going to try camping again in the near future.

Thanks for all the advice. Let me know if anyone has any thoughts on the 3 items listed above!