Meet Max and Mike...

Or as Gabriel likes to call them “Cat” and “Pillar” This weekend we added two more members to our home. Yep, because having three kids and a dog wasn’t enough. We now are the proud care providers of two caterpillars.

This past weekend we went on our first camping adventure as a family of 5. I admit when my aunt asked us to go, I was super excited and thought it would be a fun adventure. It was only when the days of our scheduled departure grew closer, that I realized the challenges and unique considerations I had to prepare for. Having a one-year-old who moves constantly and makes noises in her sleep like she’s awake, and two other boys who wake up the moment the sun meets the horizon on the East coast (we live in the West), doesn’t make for the best camping guests. Jarrett reassured me saying, “Sleeping isn’t a part of camping, especially tent camping.” Even still, I tried to replay each scenario that could possible happen and then I packed everything we’d need to respond to the “crisis”.

On Friday afternoon, Jarrett came home from work early, to find us all in the packed van and ready to go. On our attempt to leave town, we may or may not have had to return home three times to get items we forgot, and after a quick stop at the Dog Hotel (where Isabelle had a meltdown because her best companion was leaving), we were finally off. Only 2 hours behind our initial scheduled departure time.

 

The drive to the rim up north was beautiful. I love Arizona and how the landscape can change so drastically. I can’t think of any other state that goes from the true desert landscape of Saguaro cactus and 110 degree heat, to the rolling hills of red rock and sparse green vegetation, to full on forest with Pine trees as high as the eye can see. And the air, as the temperature lowered and the views became more and more breath-taking, we rolled down the windows. Immediately I was hit with the pure, clean, and crisp smell of pine. For a minute my nose burned, how could it be that fresh air could be so clean. I forget living in the valley brings with it, its brown clouds. How sad, to forget what the fresh air smells like. Anyway, I digress.

 

A moment of happiness early into the trip.

Thankfully my aunt and her family had already scoped out a place to camp and had texted me directions of how to get there. A great thing about going camping is that you can disconnect from the world, from all those technological devices and just be free. A drawback to camping is that you disconnect from all those high-tech devices. My case in point is here. After getting my aunt’s directions of how to find them, we set out on a road that we knew immediately was not a road for anyone other than campers. Having mis-read the instructions, we continued on the road until the pavement ended and then followed a dirt road for another 7 or 8 miles. When we realized we had to be way off track, the instructions said they were not more than a mile off the road, we knew we were lost. Fully informed of the advancements of technology, Gabriel and Michael piped in, “Mom, just call her.” Thanks Gabriel my cell phone has no service. “Then just text her Mom.” “Thanks Michael, that won’t work either, nothing on my phone works.

Now well into a 2 hour drive, Isabelle decided she had had enough of her car seat and in her new stage of perfecting the high pitched scream, she decided to practice on all of us. Having her scream at the top of her lungs continuously, while the boys ask question after question after question about why my phone wouldn’t work (Seriously they have no idea of what life is like before constant and instant communication) and Jarrett asking me to reread the instructions over and over again, was well, a tiny bit stressful. Never mind the fact that road we were on was definitely a one-way road that we seemed to be going the wrong way on. After finding a point where we could do a 12 point turn around, we did and decided to head back to where we came from.

At this point I was giving Isabelle anything I could find to entertain her and to keep the screaming at bay. In my state of craze, I ended up giving her a water bottle which didn’t have the cap screwed tightly on. I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this, but it wasn’t two seconds later when I looked over to see her squeeze the bottle with both hands. The lid shot up, followed by a burst of water and 16 ounces of H20 being doused onto her. Insert high pitched screaming again. Meanwhile Jarrett was still asking for directions and the boys, having seen Isabelle have water, now needed a drink immediately too.

On our hour and 15 minute extended journey to find camp, Jarrett and I decided to take every switch back road possible off of Young Road. On one road in particular we turned and immediately knew we had made a bad, really bad decision. The road wasn’t really a road, it was more like half a road, that I don’t think had been driven on since the days when the people installed the huge electricity towers that branch across the mountains. However, upon turning on it, there was no going back. Backing up, I’m afraid would have taken us over a 800 to 1,000 foot cliff. Now I was freaking out joining Isabelle in her high pitched scream. The boys are now laughing, Isabelle’s looking at me like I’m crazy, and Jarrett’s shouting at me to calm down. He carefully drover around the side of the cliff while the gravel rocks slide down the mountain top with each roll of the wheel. After making it around “edge of the cliff turn” we made our way down a bit to a tree covered area (still on the edge of the cliff) but standing in the middle of the “road” (and I use that term loosely) was an elk. Looking at us, as we would look at an alien if it landed on a road in front of us. We knew that animal hadn’t seen people before and slowly it moved to join the rest of its family along the end of the forest line. Jarrett, trying to be the ultimate optimist said, “Well at least we saw some wildlife.” I wasn’t so impressed, isn’t that why we have zoos? Again I digress.

A little dirt never hurt anyone right? 

With no other choice than to keep driving, it was then I made the declaration that if we got off of this road alive, we would scrap camping and go to Payson, find a hotel and enjoy all the modern technologies that we could. Finally we found a place to do another 12 point turn, while the edge of our van hung over the cliff, I closed my eyes and started praying out loud. Gabriel and Michael didn’t and half way through his turn they started screaming out of fear. I couldn’t look. Thankfully Jarrett’s a great driver, and was able to get us back heading the right direction. The entire way back up the road we approached the “edge of the cliff turn” for the second time and by this point all of us were praying out loud. After surviving it for the second time, Jarrett put the car in park at the entrance to the other road and said, THANK YOU GOD FOR GETTING US OUT OF THERE SAFELY!” Now off to Payson to find a hotel. He had had enough of the adventure too.

However his announcement was met with major rejection and disappointment from the back seat of the van. “NO, I want to go camping.” No, we can just camp on our own.” PLEASE let’s just call them. Can you please call them?” Like I wouldn’t if I could Gabriel. And as we continued to talk we drove toward the entrance of Young Road when of course the potty time limit had called. Like an emergency Michael shouted, I have to go pee RIGHT NOW!!!!! Dad, I’m going to pee my pants.” I guess the experience of what we had just endured had literally scared the pee right out of him. Jarrett pulled the car over, out piled Michael grabbing himself because he had to go to the bathroom so badly, Gabriel pouting because he was sad weren’t going to camp and Isabelle screaming, well I guess that’s just because that’s what she does. As Dad took the boys, I changed Isabelle from her sopping wet clothes and tried to dry out her seat. In the moment we were deciding if we were going to have a mini picnic in the middle of the wood, a miracle happened.

Just about ready to give up...

 My cell phone rang. Yes, I’m not sure how it happened but like a sign from God, my phone, where no cell service was to be found, actually worked and it was my uncle. Like a rescue service, I answered as quickly as I could. “Where are you?” he asked. And I asked him the same thing back, “Where are you? We’ve been trying to find you for the past hour and 15 minutes.” He told us to meet him at the entrance to the road (where we knew exactly where it was) and within minutes we were there. At first glance of his vehicle I rolled down the window and practically threw myself out of it. I was NOT letting him out of my sight.

After our “adventure” of finding camp, things went very well. We set up tent with less than 45 minutes of daylight while the kids basked in the glory that is being outside. They were chasing bugs, waving at trees, falling in the dirt and in pure pleasure. We got the tent set up and started to make dinner. My cousins so gracefully took the boys to the butterfly prairie where they tried to catch butterflies and explore. The boys found three stink bugs which they kept in their bug container even though every 5 steps Michael would trip on something and fall, sending his stink bugs flying out of their “cage”. He didn’t mind though he’d just pick them back up and put them back inside his catcher. 

Although no camp fires were allowed, they got to tell scary stories and carry flashlights all around. To them that is camping. Isabelle was also a trooper and feel asleep with not too much effort and to mom’s surprise, slept all night in the tent under the stars. Good thing I had planned for a few back up plans, including sleeping in the van, she proves me wrong every time. The boys also retired for the night and slept like babies. I even have to say of the several grounds I’ve slept on in a tent, I think we found the smoothest ground out there.

The next morning at 5 minutes past 5 am, Gabriel and Michael were up, full of energy ready to wake up the entire camp. “Mom-can we go see the butterflies now?” “No boys, go back to sleep, be quiet, your sister is sleeping.” It only took one time of Michael shouting “WHAT did you say mom?” for Isabelle to wake up too. We did our best to keep the kids quiet, taking them on two morning hikes, followed by another game of silent bug catching. When the rest of the camp got up, we went on another hike which was beautiful and allowed Michael the chance to add to his bug collection. Out were the stink bugs and in were Mike and Max. Alicia helped Michael to get a fuzzy caterpillar and then I found a baby one on a log. Michael scooped them up and like a mother to a baby, cared for them the entire morning. And when Mom said it was okay to take them home, he was ecstatic.

Around lunch time we had to head back to the heat of the valley and so we packed up our gear and said thank you to our wonderful hosts. On our way home Michael watched every moment his two new pets made and carefully placed them in their “car seats” i.e. the cup holder so they wouldn’t get hurt. He said, “I’m going to call them Max and Mike.” When we got home, we unloaded all the car, put everything away and then took on the task of creating a new home for Michael’s friends.

 

A Best Food’s Mayo jar, did just the trick and with the help of Dad gathering some fichus leaves from our neighbor’s nicely growing tree and mom some sticks from our dead fichus tree, we were set. We moved them over to their new home and all took turns watching our new pets in their new home. Although silly, Jarrett and I talked about how it each took us back to our youth when we’d try to have a caterpillar and turn it into a butterfly. And even more silly, we both had no idea what caterpillars eat so we had to use our handy dandy technological device to google what they eat. Fichus leaves will work.

And while the boys took turns gawking at them, Gabriel tried to convince Michael to change their names. “Michael, don’t you think Cat and Piller are better names, you know like caterpillar. Michael wasn’t persuaded, Gabriel I already know they are caterpillars, I don’t need to call them that.

That night we all retired to bed early as everyone was tired. The next morning we got up and first thing the boys did was race to see how Max and Mike were doing. While still laying in bed, hoping I could get a few more minutes of sleep, screaming from the living room (where the caterpiller’s home is) quickly told me not going to happen. “Mom- come quick!!!!” Thinking Max and Mike didn’t like their new home and may have went to other places, I feared we’d have to tell the boys about the realities of living in a jar. To my surprise when I went to meet the boys, they instead showed me this…

Yep Mike has started the process of becoming a butterfly and we don’t think Max is too far behind. We are now in the process of goggling how long caterpillars stay in their cocoon. It’s been a lot of fun to talk about it and all of us are enjoying it.

One things for sure, our first time camping as a family of 5 was an adventure. From risking our life and completing writing off camping for the rest of our lives, to almost staying at the motel 8, wild adventures with stink bugs and dirt, to caterpillars we got to bring home and enjoy for more days. If there’s one thing youth shows me, is that simple things are just as enjoyable as the more advanced. And so we’ll enjoy our cocoon caterpillar and give thanks to Mother Nature for her beauty, just as much as I’ll give thanks for the modern day features like a working cell phone.

Until next time,

angie