Enthusiast III
My wife and I took the dogs down to PINS this weekend to celebrate our 5th anniversary. I can’t believe we hadn’t made it down there before now, it really is a treasure.
We grabbed a nice spot and set up early in the day. In the past I had waited to put the RTT together, putting it up on arrival really makes the evening routine much better.
The dogs are both pretty good little campers. The Cairn Terrier (blonde one) is stoic and can handle anything except thunder. The Jack Russell is old and starting to get cataracts and tends to get overwhelmed by new experiences, but a quick nap in the backseat recharges her batteries if she starts feeling anxious. They both do a great job sleeping through the night in the tent.
Since this was a special trip I planned more elaborate food than usual. We had some grilled fish tacos for dinner and made a cast iron peach cobbler for dessert. My wife did a great job of mixing and portioning the wet and dry ingredients before we left so we only needed to combine and cook.
This was our first time beach camping and our first time “dispersed” camping (we stayed in reasonable walking distance of the South Beach vault toilet in case of emergencies). We definitely learned a few things that we’ll apply to future trips.
-I really need a second table and a better system to organize my kitchen crate. Usually at developed campsites I have the option of completely unpacking the box to get cooking. This time, without a picnic table, I couldn’t do that without getting everything all sandy. Our little folding GCI table couldn’t hold anything except the camp stove while I was cooking and the plan to use the Plano cases as additional surfaces didn’t pan out because they needed to stay open to get things out.
-We’d been considering replacing our unwieldy 5gal collapsible LDPE water tank with something smaller and more manageable but between drinking, cooking, washing up, and doing dishes we used the whole thing in two days/one night. We weren’t particularly conservative with it but I learned that we use a lot more water than I thought we would when not at a campsite with a spigot.
-We were warned, but I still wasn’t completely ready for the constant, strong wind. I brought a small charcoal grill for our fish but could not manage to keep it lit and had to switch to the gas stove. I had set up the tent with the rain fly on and had to remove it in the middle of the night because the sound of it flapping was unbearable and it felt like the tent was going to lift off. Don’t worry, everything was staked down. After it was off we were in much better shape, though the jingling zipper pulls still kept me awake for a while. I’ll definitely paracord them before our next adventure. It ended up raining around 0300 but all we had to do was close up the skylights and the wind kept the rain from pooling and soaking through so the regular tent fabric held up fine. This was the most punishing night we’ve put the tent through and I was pretty impressed with it. I’m sure it can take more and I know I’d probably lie awake all night anyway if it did. It got windy enough that about half of the camping groups that we could see when we went to bed had packed up and bailed at some point in the night.
-That powdery dune sand gets EVERYWHERE. I spent all of yesterday vacuuming out the car and our gear.
-We managed to forget our pillows for the third time in a row. I’m getting inflatable camp pillows that will live in the rig full time.
-Just a note for anyone heading down to PINS with little kids or pets, I saw a Portuguese Man o’ War in the water while swimming. Only saw one and it was easy enough to stay away but those can be really nasty. My little brother was stung once when he was a toddler because he thought it was pretty and tried to pick it up and he had a very scary reaction.
PINS is beautiful. The water is much clearer and more refreshing than it is up by Galveston where we normally take our beach day trips. The stars at night were breathtaking through the tent skylights once we took the rain fly off and we woke up just in time for a spectacular sunrise. Since we camped closer to the road we took the opportunity in the morning to explore further down the beach and drove down to about mile 12. The Crosstrek drove very well in the soft sand when we got further down, I’m happy to report.
We grabbed a nice spot and set up early in the day. In the past I had waited to put the RTT together, putting it up on arrival really makes the evening routine much better.
The dogs are both pretty good little campers. The Cairn Terrier (blonde one) is stoic and can handle anything except thunder. The Jack Russell is old and starting to get cataracts and tends to get overwhelmed by new experiences, but a quick nap in the backseat recharges her batteries if she starts feeling anxious. They both do a great job sleeping through the night in the tent.
Since this was a special trip I planned more elaborate food than usual. We had some grilled fish tacos for dinner and made a cast iron peach cobbler for dessert. My wife did a great job of mixing and portioning the wet and dry ingredients before we left so we only needed to combine and cook.
This was our first time beach camping and our first time “dispersed” camping (we stayed in reasonable walking distance of the South Beach vault toilet in case of emergencies). We definitely learned a few things that we’ll apply to future trips.
-I really need a second table and a better system to organize my kitchen crate. Usually at developed campsites I have the option of completely unpacking the box to get cooking. This time, without a picnic table, I couldn’t do that without getting everything all sandy. Our little folding GCI table couldn’t hold anything except the camp stove while I was cooking and the plan to use the Plano cases as additional surfaces didn’t pan out because they needed to stay open to get things out.
-We’d been considering replacing our unwieldy 5gal collapsible LDPE water tank with something smaller and more manageable but between drinking, cooking, washing up, and doing dishes we used the whole thing in two days/one night. We weren’t particularly conservative with it but I learned that we use a lot more water than I thought we would when not at a campsite with a spigot.
-We were warned, but I still wasn’t completely ready for the constant, strong wind. I brought a small charcoal grill for our fish but could not manage to keep it lit and had to switch to the gas stove. I had set up the tent with the rain fly on and had to remove it in the middle of the night because the sound of it flapping was unbearable and it felt like the tent was going to lift off. Don’t worry, everything was staked down. After it was off we were in much better shape, though the jingling zipper pulls still kept me awake for a while. I’ll definitely paracord them before our next adventure. It ended up raining around 0300 but all we had to do was close up the skylights and the wind kept the rain from pooling and soaking through so the regular tent fabric held up fine. This was the most punishing night we’ve put the tent through and I was pretty impressed with it. I’m sure it can take more and I know I’d probably lie awake all night anyway if it did. It got windy enough that about half of the camping groups that we could see when we went to bed had packed up and bailed at some point in the night.
-That powdery dune sand gets EVERYWHERE. I spent all of yesterday vacuuming out the car and our gear.
-We managed to forget our pillows for the third time in a row. I’m getting inflatable camp pillows that will live in the rig full time.
-Just a note for anyone heading down to PINS with little kids or pets, I saw a Portuguese Man o’ War in the water while swimming. Only saw one and it was easy enough to stay away but those can be really nasty. My little brother was stung once when he was a toddler because he thought it was pretty and tried to pick it up and he had a very scary reaction.
PINS is beautiful. The water is much clearer and more refreshing than it is up by Galveston where we normally take our beach day trips. The stars at night were breathtaking through the tent skylights once we took the rain fly off and we woke up just in time for a spectacular sunrise. Since we camped closer to the road we took the opportunity in the morning to explore further down the beach and drove down to about mile 12. The Crosstrek drove very well in the soft sand when we got further down, I’m happy to report.
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