For various reasons I haven’t been out camping a lot this year, and the last time me and C were out together were in September, during the Friluftsfrämjandet overnighter.

C had asked me why we never got out like we used to, and also told her mother several times that she wanted to get out with me.

I wasn’t really feeling it, and was too tired to get out, but decided to take her camping on a Friday night after school. I felt like she really needed it, and I guess I did too.

It was really windy, a few degrees below freezing and snowy. C wanted to go to our “secret” spot, since we hadn’t been there in a while. She also wanted us to do a hot tent camping trip, which meant bringing the canvas Tentipi and my GStove. Despite having packed before she finished school we didn’t get to our location until it got dark. The foot bridge out to the peninsula was slippery, and parts of it were below water.

But we got out safely and set up the camp. Despite not really feeling like camping to begin with I got more relaxed once the camp was up. We fired up the stove and started making dinner. The tent heated up quickly, and it didnt take long before we had to open the top vent to release some heat. It was really cozy to sit inside while the snowy cold wind howled outside.

The neighborhood watch is really active here, even though you only pass a few houses on the last stretch, and as usual an ATV drove to our car several times, and looked out towards the peninsula to see what we were doing.

C was ecstatic. She really was happy to be out camping again. She had chosen burgers, so I fried them up. As usual we also brought a lot of snacks.

After dinner she wanted to get inside the sleeping bag and watch the little mermaid on my phone. She watched half of it before it was time for her to go to sleep. She fell asleep quickly.

I loaded the stove full of firewood and closed the vents enough to get a slow burn. I watched Netflix for a while, before going to sleep.

I slept pretty poorly, and the howling wind woke me up. In the gusts it felt like the ground swayed, and I think it was the roots from the pine trees around the tent that swayed a lot in the wind.

At 03.00 I got up to take a leak. While I was out I heard C calling for me. I thought she just woke up and wanted to know where I was, but when I got back inside I saw that she had vomited all over herself, her sleeping bag and the sleeping pad. She said she woke up and threw up right away, before having the time to get out of the sleeping bag.

It felt like a nightmare. The weather was horrible, it was in the middle of the night, and now I would have to shovel up vomit and pack up in the middle of the night. But it was hard enough for C to have thrown up, so I had to keep the spirits up. I told her to see it as extra adventurous to have to pack up in a storm in the middle of the night. She kept her spirits up, and was a real trooper.

I did my best to get the worst of the vomit off the sleeping pad, but I didn’t have a lot of toilet paper. I had to wipe with her base layer too.

I packed everything up, and put her sleeping bag, pad and clothes in a separate dry bag.

We got back to the car, and drove back home. I put her in the shower, gave her a bucket and put her to sleep, before packing up the dirty gear. I cleaned off the worst and hung it up to dry, before going to bed at around 04.30.

The next day was spent cleaning gear. The sleeping pad and her inflatable pillow was fairly easy to clean, but the sleeping bag took longer, with washing it by hand in the bathtub, and tumble drying it on low heat for a long time, with tennis balls in the dryer.

It was an abrupt and unfortunate ending to our overnighter, but I’m still glad we got out together. We’ll do another trip together soon, so we’ll get a whole night out. Our next trip will be Friluftsfrämjandet “sova ute” project on 17th February.