A couple of weeks ago we spent the weekend camping at our local Izaak Walton campgrounds. It's literally 20ish minutes down the street from home and it's where Tom used to camp as a Boy Scout. It was my first time at the campground and I was surprised at how pretty it was for being so close to home (I mean 66 was RIGHT THERE). We wound up being the only people camping, though there were plenty of people at the range and others who came to fish.
We were given two campsites to use, which was more than enough space, so we set up the tent at one end, farther away from this huge fire ring and used the other side for cooking, eating, and playing. The campgrounds were also right on a man made pond, which we were allowed to fish in. This was the first time we've taken the girls fishing and Stasa was dying to go out on a boat, but there was no way we'd catch anything with her making noise ON the water. Not that we caught anything anyway. We tried and tried and got a few good nibbles, but wound up only catching lilypads and logs.
Our first night there we hung out and had a late dinner before putting the kids down for bed. Neither Tom nor I slept very well the first night, which always seems to be the case when I go camping, and everyone was up at the crack of dawn the next morning. Tommy seemed to love being outside all of the time and getting dirty. He happily played with his cars and dinos in the dirt. After breakfast we got dressed and ready for a hike through the grounds, though it wasn't as long as we were planning since some of the paths were cut off by huge felled trees. After coming back from the hike I went to scratch my leg and found two ticks on it. After that we were even more diligent about checking the kids and ourselves for ticks. I ended up finding four ticks on me and then another one after we were home with a total of two actually biting me.
Side note: I did some research on preventing ticks from biting and found tea tree soap and rose geranium oil, so we'll be trying both of those during our next camping weekend.
Tommy was the only one who napped and the girls were happy to spend the day alternating between fishing and playing and exploring the grounds. At one point we all played hide-n-seek together, which was hilarious because both girls either hid in the place I last hid or they would hide in plain site - like under a picnic table or behind a skinny tree. Tommy even joined in on the fun and hid with me a couple of times, but his giggles gave us away every time.
The other different thing about this campground was the bathroom situation. As in there really wasn't one. The Cove had nice-ish bathrooms with running water and electricity and showers. This place had an outhouse and a hole in the middle of a plywood board. I took one look and saw creepy crawlies dart back in the hole and announced to the girls that they would be learning the careful art of peeing in the woods. No way was I going to pee in the place people went to be murdered. PASS.
Other than the ticks and the murder house the campgrounds were gorgeous and we had a great time. I love that this place is so close and we'll likely book a couple of more weekends through October before it gets too cold for this mama to sleep outside.
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