Enjoying Outside, Inside - Camping Indoors
Camping is a pastime that I instilled in my child from a very young age. Since the time they could walk, we would hit the road whenever possible to find a new camping locale or visit a favorite spot. As they grew older, and entered middle and then high school, camping became a way that we could stay connected and check in. It was over campfires while roasting marshmallows and disconnected from the electronic world that I heard about their triumphs and trials. In fact, when I suspected that something was bothering my budding teenager, that was when I often decided it was time for our next trip.
As they grew older, friends, other activities, and inclement weather could pull them away from the lure of a camping trip but when my child was young, the concept of bad weather impeding an overnight in the tent was simply unthinkable. This is how we came to love indoor camping, a pastime that occupied many of our most blistery winter weekends.
Those times when we just could not make it out for a camping trip, we brought the camping trip inside, setting up the tent in the middle of the living room. To be perfectly honest, this was the hardest part for me because I keep a pretty tidy home and this meant letting go for a bit and just letting the living room be our camping space. But, the rule was, if we were camping… we were camping! So, no electronics! Obviously, we were not setting up a campfire in the middle of the living room floor (not that my child didn’t try to persuade me!) but we did get our share of s’mores by making the graham cracker, chocolate, marshmallow sandwiches, wrapping them in foil and baking them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 5 – 10 minutes. We also popped popcorn and ate chips and Pop-Tarts and all the other things that I usually declared “camping food.”
Board games were a big part of these nights as well. My family has always been big board game players and that tradition has carried on with my child. So, we would get out the board games and play on the floor with our snacks and blankets. My kiddo wasn’t much into crafts (unless it involved playdough) but every so often I could get them to do a craft or 2. At the time I had to get super creative coming up with ideas, but now the internet has a wealth of ideas. Some of my favorites can be found at the California Academy of Science’s Science@Home website which features fun and fantastic science crafts you can do at home.
As the rainy winter weather continues in our area, I encourage you to give camping indoors a try, especially if you have little ones at home - whether that be kids or grandkids or nieces and nephews. Camping doesn’t just afford us time to connect with nature, it also affords us time to connect with ourselves and the ones we love.
(The dog comes camping with us also - inside or out!)
-Kara Green (kgreen@tuleyome.org)
Education Associate
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