First Camping Trip: Archer's Poudre River Resort

We had our first camping trip with two kids (we have camped with just Jack before) over the memorial day weekend. All campgrounds within 90 minutes were completely booked except for 'Archer's Poudre River Resort and Campground.' It was almost double the price of other campgrounds at $40/night, but they offered several amenities. First they had campsites right on the river, second they had bathrooms and showers available. They also had a hot tub as well as a small store and grill where you could buy hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fries, etc. They also had a playground for the kids.

We arrived at the campsite Saturday around noon and started setting up camp. The first thing we noticed was that our campsite (#1) was not as close to the river as the others. At first I was disappointed and tried to switch to another site only to find out everything was full. But in the end I was happy we were farther away from the river. The river was rushing and very dangerous for Jack and Lily. Thankfully there was a little stream that ran behind our campsite and the kids loved floating flowers and sticks on that one.

Campsite #3 right on the Poudre river

The Poudre River. Very fast flowing right now.

Our campsite (#1) across from #3

Small stream right behind our campsite

Bridge over the stream behind our campsite.

After setting up our campsite we spent some time with my grandpa who came to visit for the day while on his way to Minnesota. The kids absolutely love their Papa

That evening we had a swiss tradition of cutting a banana in half and sticking chocolate in the middle and then wrapping it up in tin foil and sticking it in the fire until melted. They were delicious and then after that, we had some traditional s'mores

Then we went took advantage of some of the campsite amenities such as the hot tub and showers before bed. Saturday night was not much fun. The temperatures dropped to the 30s and we did not have any warm clothing or blankets. I had looked up the weather forecast for Bellvue, CO where the address for the campground was located and it showed highs of 80s and lows of 50s so I packed all warm weather clothing except for jackets for the kids (not me). Well to my surprise, Bellvue must be quite a large city as there is a Bellvue at 5,000 ft near Ft. Collins, but where we were camping was Bellvue at 8,000 feet in the mountains above Ft. Collins. Needless to say the altitude made a huge difference in the temperature. I was so cold I don't think I slept at all Saturday night. Eventually we all piled into one bed and put our blanket and then Jack's sleeping bag on top of us. It was still so cold that we all slept with our heads under the blankets.

Sunday morning Luke made us a nice fire to warm up by.

Lily waiting for her breakfast after a miserable night

Finally getting warm!

Yay, we survived the night!

We spent part of the day Sunday hanging around the campsite then in the afternoon we drove up to the fish hatchery 5 miles up the road. We bought several handfuls of fish food and the kids had a blast feeding all different sizes of fish.

The hatchery is split into several sections and each one has a certain size of fish. We fed tiny fish, medium sized fish and big fish that were about ready to be released into the river. The kids decided that they wanted the majority of our food to go to the baby fish.

Lily was so excited to run around and see all the fish

Lily telling me to look at the fish

The kids were captivated

Lily feeding the baby fish. You can
see them if you look very close

We had planned on doing a hike after the fish hatchery but Luke and I were so exhausted we decided to go back to the campground and let the kids play at the playground. Lily had an accident coming down the slide and split her lip open.

Campsite playground

Random huge tire at playground

Lily after splitting her lip 

After cleaning up the blood, we took a little hike around the campground and played on the rocks

A sneak peak at the budding attitude
from our little girl. She didn't like
that Jack tried to put his arm
around her.

She is a spunky one

And silly

 I guess camping is all about getting dirty. Lily decided a fun game would be to put sand/ash into a frisbee an then throw it in her own face. I was very thankful that our campsite offered showers

That night we stayed up by the campfire and told stories until the kids fell asleep. It was a perfect camping night.

We were also more prepared for the cold and rearranged the beds so that we could all fit and we all dressed in as many layers as possible. That night was bearable but still cold.

Instead of having two beds, we laid both beds sideways
and had one large bed to take advantage of body
warmth and two blankets. 

Monday morning we were ready to have our nice camp breakfast of leftover potatoes and veggies with eggs... except that I knocked over the entire skillet with our eggs into the dirt. It was pretty awful. So instead we just ate leftover potatoes and veggies. After that we packed up all our things and made our way home. We stopped at Mishawaka for lunch and watched the white water rafters go down the river.

At Mishawaka restaurant which is right on the Poudre river

It was a great trip and I'm looking forward to many more camping trips this summer.