Camping

This past weekend Tobias and I went out together on a camping trip, or, a biking vacation as Tobias called it. We strapped everything on our bikes… well… technically we strapped everything but a sleeping bag and a pair of shoes on my bike… and took off for a campsite near Oudewater, about 12 km from Gouda. Not a long ride, well, not for me anyway, but a ride all the same. We even stopped to have lunch on the way there, a pancake, just before we got there . It took us about an hour and a half including lunch to get there.

I had been wanting to do this for quite a while but we haven’t had quite the summer or the time to do it so far. Well, this past weekend was really nice so I took the opportunity! And I am so unbelievably glad I did. Tobias was sooooooo excited about the whole thing, everything about it really…

Of course, when we got there, we first put up the tent. We have a small tent, kind of igloo shaped, which is relatively easy to set up. Tobias helped of course, so we took our sweet time doing that. Then we had to put our stuff in the tent, including a large airbed. We brought a pump and much to my surprise Tobias pumped pretty much the whole thing… By the time we were done we sat outside our tent and rested a while.

Our next job was the groceries. We biked into Oudewater to get our stuff. I wanted to get an instant barbecue and we did find that. So, some meat, some bread, and some veggies, drinks and some snacks and we were set! Before we returned to the campsite it was spoiling time, eh, I mean ice-cream time .

Back at the tent we played some soccer and some games before we lit up the cue and started our dinner. We took our sweet time with that too, we basically took our sweet time doing everything… While we were taking our sweet time having dinner Tobias got up and started running around in circles, and jumping saying: “Oh papa, I love this biking vacation, this is my favorite hobby!”. That gives you an idea about the level of his excitement… .

By the time we were all done it was getting dark, the moon came out, the fields (because that’s where we were, in the fields…) were getting hazy, and the hares were coming out. So, we watched the hares, the moon, the stars and everything before it got too dark and too cold to stay outside. We went inside.

Of course being in the tent was very exciting as well. We played some games, talked, read some books, and cuddled. Tobias repeated his excitement statements like “favorite hobby”, “love this biking vacation” many times throughout the evening. We were both asleep at around 21:30 (I was really tired too, apparently, I didn’t even read…). It was not my greatest night of sleep, but I did get a reasonable amount of sleep in the end…

We woke up around 8:00. We stayed in the tent for quite a while before we got up. We talked and read some more and played some games again. Oh, and we had breakfast in the tent (we had gotten some rolls the day before…). After getting ready we biked into Oudewater again to get some drinks. We went back to the tent an played some soccer and some more games before we took the tent down again, strapped everything on the bikes again and headed for home, much to Tobias’ disappointment… He would have loved to stay a bit longer, and so would I…

We agreed to go again next year, and then stay out for two nights. But, even though it was only one night and very brief it was very nice, wonderful actually! I guess this is what they call “quality time”…