We Locked Our Keys In The Van in the Middle of the Woods

We Locked Our Keys In The Van

Camping, Day 2

After a night of heavy rain drumming our tent, I woke to the sound of birds.  Thankfully, we were nice and dry inside!  I got out of bed before everyone else to capture some nature photography before breaking down the campsite.  Cat joined me and we had fun capturing the world, damp and dew drop covered from the night before.

After Nate got up, we decided to see if our next campsite was available.  We weren’t able to get all of the days at the same spot since everything was so booked.  Usually, the whole north is mostly booked by the time spring rolls around.  If we want to pick a good spot for an entire week next year, we might have to reserve our spot within the next few months.

Cat watched the little ones while we walked across the campgrounds to take a look.  As we walked past, we noticed the people there were already packing up!  Check out isn’t until 4, so we had time to pack up our stuff and get over there.  However, we wanted to get settled in early so we could relax the rest of our day.

We packed up all of our stuff, putting all of the wet things in the back.  I was going to walk over there with the kids since it was such a beautiful day, and the van was packed in almost every seat.  Just as we were about to walk off, Nate shut the door, with the keys in the ignition and the van running.  We locked our keys in the van.

Unfortunately, my purse was in the van.  As were my keys.  There was no way to get back in.  Nate set off to find the campsite hosts to see if they could assist us.  While we waited, I took the kids down to the lake to explore.  I decided to take them over to our campsite to occupy them and give them a new place to explore.  Then I walked all the way back to see how the van situation was going.

The campground hosts were there with Nate.  They recommended calling the local police to come out and open it for free.  Nate was worried we would run out of gas if we had to wait, so he called a local tow truck to do it instead.   We ended up chatting while we waited.  Our hosts were actually from a neighboring town to our hometown!  I didn’t want to leave the kids unattended for too long, so I set off to our new site again.  It turns out, it was $90.00 to unlock our door.  Ouch.  I think waiting for the police and buying a gas can might have been cheaper.  Ah well, hindsight.

Once we got everything set up, we decided to check out the local town and also pick up some water.  Ely wasn’t what I expected.  I think I romantasized it, as I had the other towns on the drive up.  It was a pretty typical small town.  There was the main strip that went right through the center.  The shops were all mostly Mom and Pop stores, but there were a few regulars near the outskirts, like Dairy Queen and Family Dollar.  It was quite scenic from the top of the hill.

We didn’t stay too long, as we wanted to get back.  The day had escaped us.  We decided it would be good to start dinner early so we could get to bed at a decent time.  The big girls and I played card games while Nate cooked chicken over the fire.   Princess and I had gluten free grilled cheese.   For dessert, we had the camping classic, smores.  Our second day of camping was a lot of fun!

Have you had any mishaps while camping?

Check out our video of our day!

Continue on to day 3 of our camping trip!
https://cisforcomfort.com/checking-ely-minnesota/

Did you miss day 1?  Read all about it here:

16 Replies to “We Locked Our Keys In The Van in the Middle of the Woods”

  1. You have a crazy day. Lol I had a similar situation to yours, however mine was missing somewhere by the campsite. It drove everyone crazy. We searched all our bags. And soon a family member decided to go back to town to our spare key. Lol it was crazy. Lol I’m glad you had fun.

  2. Sounds like this was quite a little adventure. Our worst camping mishap was weather-related. We were tent camping. We were only a family of 3 back in those days and we decided on this small tent that was well priced thinking that we would be outside around the campfire until we went to sleep. We spend the morning hiking and it was looking like a beautiful day. It started raining in the evening. We played cards and told stories in our tight quarters until we all passed out. It rained all night. We woke up in the morning to find that our tent had sunk in the mud and we could barely get out of it. Such a mess at the time but it is now a fun memory/story. The mishaps often turn into the funniest things to look back on with time. Thanks for sharing your story!

    1. Oh wow! That sounds like quite the adventure! You are so right, the craziest adventures sometimes end up being the best stories to look back on!

  3. Just the title of this blog alone made me “have “ to read it! Love your blog and your family and your shenanigans!

  4. Sounds like you had a great day despite locking the keys in the van. Love your photography and the video.

  5. The pictures are gorgeous! Nature is such a beautiful thing to capture. Looks like you had a great camping trip beside locking yourself out of the vehicle. Everything works out though!

  6. That area looks soooo beautiful! What an adventure you had. I had a similar experience while camping. I locked my keys in the trunk and had to call to get them out. Ugh.

    1. It was a little stressful, but thankfully we laughed it off. It’ll be something funny for us to remember, years to come. 🙂

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