Father / Son Camping Activity at Manderscheid Castle

I took the boys on a church-sponsored father / son camping activity this weekend. Some of you may know that I really dislike camping. Let me count the ways: insects, primitive and disgusting bathroom facilities, uncomfortable sleeping conditions, wet grass in the morning that gets my socks wet, out of control children lacking adult supervision, smoke from the fire blowing in my direction, bad food, staying up too late and getting up too early, no place to take a shower, and dirt that transfers to clothes, tents, and cars.

The event was described to me as camping in a castle. The most important word in the previous sentence was "in". I was actually kind of looking forward to camping "in" a castle. Camping "in" a castle couldn't be nearly as bad as camping outside, right? There would be no bugs, the floor would be level, the fire would be outside (if it existed at all), there wouldn't be dirt / mud everywhere, and the bathrooms might even be decent.

I left work at 2PM on Friday afternoon and by 5PM I had the car loaded up and the boys and I were off for the 90 minute drive to Manderscheid Castle. The weather this month has been unseasonably cold and rainy but Friday was a different story. Spring finally seemed to arrive -- temperatures were in the low 70s and the were no rainclouds in sight. The forecast for Saturday was more of the same.

We spent about 30 minutes in stop-and-go rush hour traffic but once we hit the rolling hills the traffic thinned, the speed limits disappeared, and we were able to make up some time. We arrived at the castle a little before 6:30 to discover that camping "in" the castle could have been more accurately described as camping "at" the castle. The castle was a shell of its former self. It was more of a ruins than anything -- just a bunch of walls. Whatever roof may have existed at one point had been missing for several hundred years. So all of my hopes for a less rugged camping experience were dashed before I had even unloaded a sleeping bag.

There were no designated camping spaces -- people were just expected to make their own camping spots anyplace they could find enough room to erect a tent. The castle was basically a series of zigzag uphill climbs to a tower. People were camped out all along the way to the tower. Somebody even set up a tent at the observation deck on top of the tower. It took us about 20 minutes to hike from ground level to the top of the tower. I didn't really want to lug camping gear up a bunch of stairs so I found a spot at ground level next to some friends and started unloading the car.  Here are some photos of the various places where people set up their tents:

 The last photo above shows the view from the top of the tower.  The tent we slept in is the purple and gray one in the first photo (next to the small orange tent).

Somehow I managed to get the tent up without having to ask any boy scouts for help. The boys played Bocce Ball while I set up the tent. Later they "helped" me get the fly on the roof. Then we ate dinner -- hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, soda, and dutch oven peach cobbler for desert. Yum. At 9PM we had a brief devotional meeting (maybe 20 minutes) and then I helped the boys make Smores. Only we didn't actually get the making Smores part. Once they saw the marshmallows they were overcome with greed, decided the wait wasn't worth it, and just ate plain marshmallows instead.

At about 10:30 they boys were tiring (by their own admission) so we started to get ready for bed. We had to wait in line to use the disgusting bathroom and brush our teeth. While we were waiting, Oscar ran off. I couldn't chase him without losing our place in line so I stayed in line with Calvin and brushed his teeth. When we came out, I found Oscar stuffing himself with the Hershey's chocolate bars that people had brought to make Smores. Eventually I got his teeth brushed and we went to bed.

The boys slept fine. I slept most of the night but never really got comfortable. The temperature dropped into the mid-40s overnight so it was definitely a bit chilly in the tent. We were awakened at 5:50AM by some fool (adult) singing loudly "Oh What A Beautiful Morning". Oscar was cold so he climbed into my sleeping bag to warm up. People started stirring a little after six. I made Oscar stay in bed until 7:00 but I didn't get any extra sleep out of it -- he asked me every five minutes if it was time to get up yet.

The church provided breakfast -- all you can eat pancakes, sausages, and Tang. Oscar really liked the drink. He called it "Orange Juice that tastes like soda." Here are some photos of the boys eating breakfast.

After breakfast we went to explore the castle.  One of the rooms had a deep hole that was covered with a metal grate.  At the bottom of the hole was a (fake?) skeleton.  The boys really like the skeleton -- we had to go back and see it three or four times.  The room was dark so you could only see the skeleton by the light of a flashlight.

There was a lot to see.  This castle was big!

From the top of the tower we could look down and see a nice field for playing games.

From the tower we could also see something else off in the distance:

Another castle!  Manderscheid is actually two castles -- a lower castle (where we camped) and an upper castle some ways off.

After exploring the lower castle, we packed up the tent and loaded the car with our belongings.  Then we headed down to the field for some games.

Oscar and Jakob wanted to have a race.  Jakob won.

But after further review, it appeared he might have gotten a bit of a head start.

The races were lots of fun.

Here is a photo of the lower castle's tower as viewed from the grassy field.

The boys wanted to hike to the upper castle.  I thought it might be too hard or too far away but they insisted on going.  I told them that I was not carrying anybody up to the castle and that if they wanted to go they both had to walk.  The hike was steep and the trail was only three or four feet wide.  The trail also ran along a cliff edge that dropped fifty to a hundred feet into a small stream.  Oscar noted several times that the path was "not safe".  We did not have enough room to walk next to each other so I led the way and the boys held onto my hands from behind.  Each time the boys started to complain about length or difficulty of the hike I offered to turn around and go back to the car so we could start the drive home.  This was immediately followed by a renewed determination to continue to the second castle.  We stopped at an observation point along the way.  It had a nice view of the lower castle.

It took us about 30 minutes but eventually we made it all the way to the upper castle.  Then we climbed the stairs all the way to the top of the tower.  There must have been about two hundred stairs.  The boys were tired but they wanted to get to the top.  They wanted to touch the flagpole to prove that they were there.

From the tower, we could see the lower castle in the distance and the grassy field below.

Here we are at the top of the upper tower with the lower castle in the background.

After we were done exploring the upper castle, we walked back down to the car and ate lunch.  We had bananas, apples, and some bread from the bakery by our house.  We were supposed to have peanut butter sandwiches but I couldn't find the knife so we just skipped the peanut butter.

Once we were on the road, the boys fell asleep after about ten minutes.  They were exhausted so they slept the whole way home.  The German countryside is still full of fields of yellow Rapeseed plants (I first wrote about this a few weeks ago).  I took another photo:

The traffic was light and there was no speed limit most of the way so I had the car cruising above a hundred miles an hour.  I guess I had it up to 124 MPH at some point:

We got home a little after 2PM.  I got the car unloaded and then Tina gave the boys a bath while I hopped in the shower.

A report on my complaints: The insects weren't too bad (Germany doesn't really have mosquitoes), the bathrooms were definitely primitive and disgusting, the sleeping conditions were subpar but not horrible, the grass was definitely very wet in the morning (but somehow my socks stayed dry), there were lots of children that were absolutely out of control lacking appropriate adult supervision (not mine), I stayed away from the fire so the smoke didn't blow in my direction, the food was edible but not great, we went to bed at a reasonable time but got woken up way too early, I didn't get a shower until I got home, and lots of dirt was transferred onto clothes and into my car.

Notwithstanding my complaints, the camping trip with the boys was still a lot of fun.  We all had a good time and the boys are already looking forward to next year's father / son campout ("no girls allowed").