Hellobee

I’ve been an avid camper my entire life thanks to my parents, and I’ve instilled that love of camping in my kids too. On our visit to the US last month, I planned a family camping trip — three generations for the first time! We went to Table Mountain Campground in Wrightwood about 2 hours east of Los Angeles, because it offers mountain camping without difficult mountain driving. It’s located just 10 minutes above Mountain High Ski Resort, so you have access to restaurants, a market and anything you might need to stock up on.

We went to sleep on a chilly spring night in the tent, and got the biggest surprise when we woke up to a winter wonderland in mid-May! It has been Charlie’s dream to see snow again as he hasn’t seen it in over 4 years. We froze our butts off because we were thoroughly unprepared for snow, but this was a camping trip I’m sure my kids will never forget!

The first two things we always do is collect enough firewood to last until we go to sleep and pitch the tent.

Being in such fresh air always makes you hungry. We immediately grilled some Little Smokie sausages, and wrapped a big roast beef in aluminum foil that takes a good hour to cook.

We stopped by the 99 cent store first to buy bubbles, glow sticks, and sunflower seeds — my snack of choice when camping.

My dad’s famous roast beef! Costco has really high quality beef!

We always wrap corn and potatoes in aluminum foil and roast them in the fire. This was the most delicious white corn I’d ever had in my life!

Campfire potatoes are so yum with just salt and pepper.

And we never forget the marshmallows!

It was so cold we really needed a roaring fire to keep us warm.

It was my dad’s birthday, so we brought a cake to celebrate.

Black bears are common in southern California mountains (I’ve seen them as a kid digging through our trash), so each campsite came equipped with a bear box for locking up food.

I told Charlie that we used to roast big rocks in the campfire, wrap them in aluminum foil, then wrap them in a towel to keep us warm in tents during cold camping nights. He insisted we do this, and I’m so glad he did because we did not plan for snow, and these rocks stayed warm until the morning! Without them we really would have froze!

We knew it was raining, but we didn’t know that it snowed all night and we woke up to a winter wonderland!

Charlie built this snowman all by himself — the rest of us were way too cold to join in.

I’ve been on many camping trips where things don’t go as expected like this one, but they always end up being the most memorable trips. We didn’t bring warm enough clothes or blankets, but seeing the kids light up at the sight of snow made us all so happy. It’s the simple things in life!