Trip was as advertised before rain

“So,” someone said, “how’d that camping trip go? That one with the grandchildren.”

Fair question.

I had mentioned in a column earlier this summer that my wife and I planned to take three of our grandchildren camping on the coast of Maine.

It sounded, on its face, like a ridiculous notion for a couple in their early 70s.

Camping’s great when you’re a kid. It’s great for a young family. It can even be great later in life when it’s just the two of you.

But camping with a 7-year-old, a soon-to-be 8-year-old and an almost 11-year-old?

That sounds a little crazy.

Besides, the ground gets harder and less forgiving at our age.

Still, we’d taken steps to make sure it was as gentle on our old bones as possible.

It was a package deal. For about the cost of a couple of nights in a motel, we could book a campsite for two nights through the outfitter L.L. Bean.

Bean would provide the tent, the sleeping bags, lanterns, pads to cushion the effect of sleeping on the ground, a propane stove with a tank, a cooler and an assortment of cooking gear. They’d also provide a screened tent, camp chairs, wood for a fire and materials to get the fire going.

Think of it as an all-inclusive in the woods.

Still, we had to bring our food, clothes and anything else we deemed essential.

(For the grandchildren, that meant electronic devices. For the grandparents, it meant cold beer.)

The adventure had been my wife’s idea. The campsite was in southern Maine, about half a day’s drive from her family’s cabin in New Hampshire that we’ve visited almost every summer of our married life.

On paper, it looked great. But it involved a lot of promises from L.L. Bean, and we wanted to see how that would play out.

Our New Hampshire time was first marked by a delayed wedding celebration. Our niece Maria and her guy Frank had gotten married in Virginia in 2020, right in the thick of the COVID mess. The wedding had been a small, church-basement affair, without much in the way of festivities.

So my wife and her sister conspired to transform the cabin into a venue for a better party.

That meant moving a tremendous amount of furniture from one place to another so that a series of tables could be put in a line together with enough room for about 20 people.

The party was great, and afterwards we had a few days with our granddaughter Johanna. A few days later, she was joined by grandsons Gabriel and Julian.

Once their parents had departed, it was time to get ready for the trip to Maine.

We found the campground all right, though it seemed that the kids in the backseat managed to raise the decibel level every time our navigation system provided critical instructions.

And to my surprise, the campsite turned out to be exactly as it was advertised.

Bean books two sites for the entire summer for this “Wicked Easy Camping” deal.

Ours looked out over Casco Bay in the Atlantic. Everything that had been promised was ready and waiting for us.

In short order, Connie was making dinner and the kids were making friends at other campsites. S’mores followed around the campfire, and the whole crew — grandparents included — slept well.

In the morning, the kids and their new friends explored tide pools and harassed snails to their hearts’ content.

Then, about 2 p.m., the weather changed.

The last of Hurricane Fred arrived.

It rained steadily and hard for three hours.

And at that point, we bailed. Leaving the campsite and all its gear behind, we climbed into Connie’s CRV and headed back to the cabin.

It rained the whole way. And it was still raining when we arrived. But at least we had a real roof over our heads.

And the grandchildren had a story to tell about their first camping trip.