Letting Go

When my children were all very young, it was always a big event the first time they could go camping with their dad and not with me. I always expected there to be an early return due to a crying child that first time. Sometimes it happened. Sometimes it didn't.

Now they all camp at least once a year. I don't go, because I don't like camping, but they all do. And they don't need me with them all the time anymore. Dad is just fine.

This year, the two older boys--now 14 (and a half!) and 12--upped the ante. They asked if they could go on a camping trip with just the two of them. No Dad.

We said yes.

The plan was to take them somewhere pretty close just for a night. One of them had a deer hunt in the area closest to our house this past weekend, and I suggested to A. that perhaps this would be the right time for them to do their solo campout. It's only about half an hour away. It was going to be dry and warm. There is cell service there. It seemed like a good opportunity.

So A. loaded their packs, gave them many instructions, and dropped them off.

Small boys, big country.

And then, of course, both A. and I spent some time imagining all the unlikely things that could go wrong in the 15 hours they were there.

Could a mountain lion or bear have attacked them? Could there have been an unexpected storm with lightning strikes? Could someone have fallen in the fire? Could one of them have been bitten by a rattlesnake?

Yes. Any of those things COULD have happened. But none of them did. What it came down to is that those boys are comfortable camping, hiking, and hunting, and we trust them in that environment.

There were several elk that ran by in the stream bed just about twenty feet from their campsite in the middle of the night. This of course woke them up, because elk are huge and it sounded like stampeding horses, but that was pretty much it for excitement.

No deer, either, so the hunt wasn't successful. But the campout was. And I'm sure there will be many more in their future.