Minus six

I’m a little bit nervous. As I write this, I’m parked on a snow-covered camper lot on the shores of the Sylvenstein reservoir. I’m putting my son Rafa to bed in the high roof bed. Heike and Lara are below me on the ground floor bed. It’s been awhile since we camped out, so Rafa is also visibly excited. In the background there’s the soft humming of the stationary heating. We’ve never really relied on it overnight. Tonight, it’ll be six degrees below zero. That’s pretty chilly, if the heater doesn’t do it’s job well enough.

So far, the heater does alright. We set it to 15 degrees centigrade. Not too warm, but warm enough to sleep in. Nevertheless you can feel that it’s cold, as if the air carries the memory of being frozen.

You may wonder why do we do this. Camp out with a toddler and a baby. It’s a good question, and we didn’t really know the answer either. We just like strange adventures, I guess. We’re not alone in this. We share the lot with maybe four or five other vehicles. We arrived at this lot around 4pm, when it was still free from campers. Skies were clean, and clear blue. The sun was setting behind the mountains towards the West. Meanwhile, a full moon appeared over the mountains in the East, as we set out for a late afternoon walk. The lake reservoir surface was flat as a mirror. No wind or anything that broke the perfect image. Too bad I left my DSLR at home. A few phone snaps are poor substitutes for good photography. So be it. It’s an eerie atmosphere. I usually don’t walk through snow-covered mountain landscapes along the shores of picture perfect lakes at dusk. This is usually the time when we are firmly on our way home. We always miss the best part. Similarly, we never experienced a sunrise, or early morning walk. We always are late at the scene. Kids slow us down in the morning, and shorten our days. Sleeping in our camper, especially in winter – when days are short, really kills two birds with one stone. I’m almost certain it’s worth it, but let’s see how we feel tomorrow morning.

Now I’ll have to try and upload this post. I think there’s no internet for many kilometers in either direction. It will upload as soon as I have internet, but trust me, it’s 20:18 on December 18th when I hit ‘publish’. Edit: That was too easy… Let’s see if I can add a picture.