Our first family camping trip

In mid-September, we went on our very first overnight camping trip at a campground! I wrote this post back in July about our little backyard campout, which was a soft introduction to camping with our little boys. Come September and slightly cooler weather, we were ready for a slightly more involved camping trip.

We checked the forecast for a week or so, and then I booked two nights at the Turkey Run State Park campground for us. Weekends in September were pretty much booked, but we were looking for two consecutive nights midweek, and reservations weren't a problem whatsoever. We left midday on a Wednesday, and arrived to the campground in time to set up camp, walk around a bit, and make dinner. The campground wasn't full – and it was rather quiet, at least in the section that our site was in, which was nice. Our particular site had a very large, flat area for us to set up our tent, and lots of room for the boys to run around. Since the forecast was mid-eighties during the day, I chose a site that was full shade. Did you know that the State Park websites offer site-specific information and photos for every single site? So helpful! Especially for a campground we hadn't yet visited.

We had hot dogs and brats over the fire with homemade sourdough buns, and s'mores for dessert. I did a little sock knitting. The boys were so excited to set up their own camping chairs by the fire and hunt for campsite treasures like acorns and fallen leaves and special sticks.

After tepid showers and an early bedtime, we all slept (the boys slept better than us parents, admittedly). The next morning, breakfast was baked oatmeal for the boys, and conveniently, they both prefer to eat it cold. Nicholas and I had sausages and eggs, cooked in the cast iron, with sourdough bagels on the side. I packed lunches and we cleaned up breakfast dishes and got ready for the day.

We drove over to the nature center, since the campground is somewhat removed from the rest of the park. We browsed the exhibits, and we got to see the rangers feed a few of the snakes they have on display (a once-every-two-weeks occurrence). And then we headed out on the trail. Turkey Run State Park has a few notable features, one being its suspension bridge, and the other most appealing to us was its sandstone ravines/caverns.

The boys did great on the hike – we stopped for lunch along the way, scrambled over and between boulders, climbed and descended lots of stairs, and eventually made it to Trail 3's sequence of ladders. Both boys climbed the first ladder (spotted by their dad, naturally) and Cooper climbed the other two as well. The hike we took was cool and comfortable; it definitely didn't feel like the forecasted mid-eighties temperature. We hiked some more, Finn fell asleep on Nicholas and then I held him while Cooper and Nicholas did some whittling. After some more hiking, we made our way back to the car and our campsite to start a fire and prep foil dinners.

Another night spent in the tent, and we packed up and headed home after breakfast the next day!

A few takeaways from our first camping trip:

• The packing and prep (and unpacking and cleanup) takes a significant amount of work(!) More than I expected. But we made some notes about simplifying meals, etc. and next time, whenever that is, should be somewhat more straightforward.
• We loved the ease of a super simple meal like grass-fed hotdogs, brats, and homemade buns brought from home.
• Although we brought some reverse osmosis water from home, we'd bring more next time/prepare better. Water is available in the campgrounds, which we did use for dishes and drinking water towards the end of our trip.
• It was very helpful to reference a friend's "master camping packing list" in advance of our trip – she included several items we would have certainly forgotten!
• I was 25ish weeks pregnant on this trip. Glad to out of first trimester before attempting tent camping, but my hips weren't very happy about sleeping on an air mattress, and I'm glad we didn't camp when I was any further along in this pregnancy.
• We specifically chose a site with electric so we could charge phones, flashlights, etc. And we wanted access to showers and flush toilets, although none of us had a thorough shower during our stay.
• The boys did the best during the more difficult sections of trails – boulders, a creek bed to jump over, the ladders, etc. The more engaged their minds were on the task at hand, the more entertained they were (which makes sense).

It was a fun trip, overall! There were some ups and downs with the boys, but overall, the "ups" were memorable for all four of us. Nicholas and I agreed that we are glad we squeezed in one family camping trip this season. Until the next time!