Another guest post by Kerry from last year’s blog.  Kandice will be back next week.

I have a formula for camping trips.  In my experience actual camping is about 60% packing and unpacking, 20% driving, and 10% calm moments while one-with-nature. Don’t get me wrong, I think the 10% is worth the effort, but I think it’s important to manage expectations.

This summer our kids spent a week at sleep away camp in the mountains and my husband, Trigger and I simultaneously went on our first backpacking trip since the birth of our children.

In theory, walking while carrying everything you need, should be a pretty simple endeavor. In theory…

I would like to tell you that I was really organized and give you some great tips on resale equipment and how to pack efficiently, but I can’t, because these trips coincided with us packing up our house in Colorado and moving back to Texas which seemed all like a most excellent adventure when I planned it in February.

But by the end of June, I was frantic, disorganized and nervous that one of my kids was going to get injured at camp and they wouldn’t be able to reach us.   Or, I was going to be eaten by a bear and wouldn’t be there to pick the kids up.  Or my husband was going to get eaten by a bear and then I would have to pick the kids up by myself.

Plus, we all had a mountain of necessary gear, some of which we had, much of which we didn’t (or couldn’t find) to include sleeping bags for the kids rated to 15 degrees.

Their current bags were rated to only 30 degrees.  What to do? Should I just tell them to wear a hat and sweater while sleeping or just hope it was going to be unseasonable warm?

So, I halfheartedly bid on a couple of needed items online.  But, then I folded like a paper crane and visited my local REI outdoor store.

The sales clerk looked and acted so much like my 20-something self that I had to take her advice– since back then I knew everything. This was on my second trip in one week, this time in search of a backpacking stove.   Actually, this was the second of four trips over the next two weeks to that store, but I didn’t know that yet.

My doppelganger sales clerk extolled the virtues of the $100 cooking option as I nervously eyed my children who were “testing out” the nearby tents.  I was already annoyed  I was there because the fuel canister for our old stove (which worked perfect fine) was no longer manufactured, rendering it useless.

Damn you Coleman and your specialty fuel container.

So, I bought the spendy stove (also with a specialty fuel cylinder, I realized later—clearly I didn’t learn my lesson) and on the way out I grabbed a wicking-shirt-with-lots-of-pockets that would be perfect.

Once you get too close to the edge…

There were more trips and we did rent some items, like a satellite phone, from this company so the kid’s camp could reach us, to soothe some of my mommy anxiety and bear canisters to keep the bears from snacking on our toothpaste and beef jerky.

I’ll admit that the ability to buy what I needed instead of frantically trying to scrounge around for loaners and/or troll Craig’s List 24/7 really did make it easier in the moment.

But, after the fact, I have guilt and fully admit that if I had started getting ready earlier, I might have had to buy less, because in addition to the environmental impact, that week was EXPENSIVE.   In hindsight, my Simple Year forced me to be more organized overall and start gathering gear earlier.

We have a family vacation planned over the winter holidays.  I think I’ll start packing next week.