One Painful Camping Trip

So my husband really likes backpacking, and minimalist camping.  Last year he took Cinderella, on an overnight backpacking trip, with his sister.  This year he wanted to take Cinderella and Guy on one, but needed another adult to go to.  He was having a hard time finding one who was available, so I suggested that I could go with him, and we could take the babies too.

We decided to do that, and make a slight adjustment to the plan.  We would drive up on Friday afternoon after he was done with work for the day, find a spot to camp, and then clean up camp in the morning, and go on a day hike.

We got all ready, and left about 4 in the afternoon.  What we didn't know was that the area we were planning on going had established campgrounds, and by the time we got there all of the camp grounds were full, and all the areas off the paved road near them, had signs saying "No Camping except in designated areas."  After a bit of driving around we found a dirt road, and found a place where we could make camp (where it wasn't prohibited).  We got out of the car, and found that the mosquitoes were thick, you would have 10-20 land on you anytime you stopped moving, and they didn't respond to our repellent.  There was a little stream where we could get water with our filter.  (And I mean little.  It was maybe a foot across,  and more standing than moving.  I guess the mosquitoes make sense.)  We built a small camp fire, to help ward off the mosquitoes, then my husband pitched the tent.  After the tent was pitched we made dinner.  We had bought some freeze dried meals, where you just add boiling water to the bag, close the bag, wait a few minutes, and then you have food to eat.  Our pan was only big enough to do enough water for one bag at a time, and we had 2 bags.  We got the first bag going and the water heating for the second bag.  Our water was boiling surprisingly fast for our elevation, and we didn't have to wait too long.  My husband started dishing up the kids food while ours was still hydrating.  But the kids were having a hard time eating because of the mosquitoes.  So I suggested that we could go and eat in the tent, where the bugs wouldn't be so thick.  So we picked up and moved to the tent.  I grabbed the bag of food that was still hydrating, and Spike, and we walked to the tent.

I set Spike down on one side of me, and the bag over by the door.  Everyone came inside, and I started to close the door.  Aurora sat down to eat her food, and the bag that was still hydrating tipped over and spilled the boiling hot water all over Aurora's legs.  I froze, my brain said what was going on, but couldn't push to what to do, even though I know what to do.  It was really scary.  I just kept yelling, "She's burning, she's burning."  Thankfully my husband is more responsive than I am, and grabbed her and ran out of the tent to take her to the stream.  When he brought her back she was still screaming, we gave her a pacifier, and I started to take her shoe and sock off.  I could see the burn, it looked like something was all over it, so I tried to clean it, and realized that what I saw was not remnants of the food.  It was her peeling skin.  It was a 2nd degree burn.  I got her shoes and socks off, put some burn ointment on it, gave her some Tylenol and tried to bandage it loosely.  Then she, Spike and I got back in the van.   She screamed until I took the bandage off.    I entertained her and Spike, while the older 2 roasted marshmallows, and my husband broke camp.  Then we headed home.  We later discovered she had a burn on the other leg too, but not as bad.

Here is what the burns looked like this morning.