The rain fly crackled when I touched it. Not wet, crackled, and when I pulled off a glove and ran a finger across it, a thin line of frost came away under my nail. Thirty-six degrees at 6:50 a.m. on December 28th at the Jekyll Island Campground on the Georgia coast, and two Miami kids asleep inside a tent I was suddenly very proud of.
Two nights at Jekyll were the camping part of our winter break trip. Here's what the cold was like, what we wore and slept in, and what we'd change before we try it again.
Two nights on the north end
We left Kendall on the 26th, the morning after Christmas, with a container of Marisol's leftover pork and the Pilot packed to the roof. It's about seven hours with stops. Jekyll charges a $10 parking fee for each day you're on the island, so our two days came to $20, on top of $112 for the campsite.
The campground sits at the north end of the island under big live oaks hung with Spanish moss. Shade, bugs, bathroom, my three checks: plenty of shade, zero bugs in late December, and a bathhouse a short walk from our site, which mattered more than I expected at 2 a.m.
Driftwood Beach is close by, a stretch of shore where old oaks and pines have died and bleached in the sand, roots and branches spread out like bones. We walked it at sunrise and again at sunset. Maya filled three pages of her journal. Nico climbed every low trunk I allowed and a few I didn't. The wind off the ocean was the cold part of the day, and the kids learned what "wind chill" means without me having to explain it.
Maya also wanted to visit the sea turtle hospital on the island. That was a no from her parents, only because we'd already promised her the aquarium in Charleston and the budget had room for one of those. She took it well, by which I mean she wrote "NEXT TIME" in her journal and underlined it twice.
What we wore, and how we slept
The first night got down to 44, which felt fine. The second night hit 36. Here's what got everyone through it:
- Kids: thermal tops and leggings, fleece over that, wool socks and a beanie they slept in. Their Coleman sleeping bags with a fleece blanket stuffed inside, on foam pads with a folded comforter on top of the foam.
- Warm bottles: before bed I heated water on the stove, filled two hard water bottles, wrapped each one in a sock and slid one into the foot of each kid's bag. Same trick that got us through 47 degrees at Long Pine Key last January.
- Adults: our two REI self-inflating pads, the best $120 we spent all year, plus everything we owned. Dana slept in her coat, inside her bag, with my unzipped bag spread over her. I slept in a hoodie with the hood up and was cold from 3 a.m. on.
The Jackery we bought on Black Friday did exactly its job, which was charging four phones and running nothing else. No heater in a tent. That was settled at home.
In the morning I lit the Coleman stove with my gloves on, and the click of the igniter was the loudest sound in the campground. Café con leche from Marisol's cafetera, in the white enamel mugs, and both kids came out of the tent still zipped in their sleeping bags, shuffling like caterpillars, to hold a mug of hot chocolate.
What we'd change
Most of our mistakes were the same mistake: we prepared for the air and forgot about the ground.
- More under, less over. The cold came up through the kids' foam pads. Next time, two layers underneath and fewer blankets on top.
- Tomorrow's clothes in the bag. Clothes left in the duffel overnight were ice cold at 7 a.m. Stuffed into the foot of a sleeping bag, they'd have been warm.
- A hot dinner earlier. The first night we ate at 7, and the kids went to bed cold. The second night, soup at 5:30 and bed at 8 made a real difference.
- A warmer bag for Dana. She hates being cold, and our old Coleman bags were not made for the 30s.
That last one may not matter. On January 1st, somewhere on I-95 south of Daytona, with both kids asleep behind us, Dana looked up from her phone and said, "We're buying a camper." It wasn't a question. I didn't argue. I'd had frost under my fingernail four days earlier.
