The Shoe.

We have spent the last six days camping. Oh, the laundry....
We started in the redwoods and ended up at the beach.

I love camping. It's just such a lovely, simple, back to nature experience.
(No helicopters this year.)
We were relatively unbothered by critters. The weather was lovely.
We had great company and then peaceful solitude.
Is that an oxymoron with two kids in tow?

We hugged trees hundreds of years old and hundreds of feet tall.
We peered into rock pools brimming with starfish, anemone and crabs.
We listened and watched a seal colony in their daily routine of barking and splashing.

My main thought through all of this?
Where is the two year old's other shoe?

Let me explain. The two year old, unlike the seven year old, has fashion preferences.
She picked out her purple Crocs with great excitement a few months back.

She loves them. She would wear them to bed if she could.
Somewhere between campsite one and two, one shoe went awol.

I turned the tent upside down, hunted under car seats, in every bag, roamed the forest floor - to no avail.
I called the first camp site host. No shoe was found.

I became obsessed - where can it have got to?
Is there a raccoon in Hendy Woods wearing one shoe?

The two year old looked confused each morning as she asked for her Croc and got Keens.
I called the first campsite again and got every ranger within 5 miles involved in the search.

It must be somewhere.

I distracted myself with ice cream, naps and sunbathing but around the campfire as the flickering flames made me reflective - my thoughts returned to the shoe.

Yes, we could get more shoes but these were her first pick. I was going to put them in her keepsake box.
How could it just disappear - it had to be somewhere.....

It was. When we took the tent apart on the last day - it was under the seven year olds sleep mat.
I guess we know she's no Princess.

My sincere apologies to the Northern California State Park Rangers.



Also, giveaway is coming - goods delayed. Perhaps they too are under the seven years olds bed......