East Harbor State Park

Campground: Site C154
Dates: July 24 - 26, 2009 total $62
Weather: Nice, but chilly (for July!), highs low 80's, lows in the 60's

This was our first trip to East Harbor. The park was nice, but unless you were camping on a cul-de-sac, it was very crowded, without much space between the sites. Our site was very private, we liked it alot. This weekend was the Christmas in July weekend, so people decorated their sites with lights and other displays which was fun to see.

Zack got to use his new camping chair. Not surprising, we had to buy one for Sydney too as she thought Zack's chair was now bigger than hers (which it really wasn't).





A big surprise was a "meow" we heard from the bushes. It was a cat! A very friendly, and probably hungry, cat came out of the woods and hung out with us all night.





It rained a lot on Saturday morning, and the people next to us packed up their stuff and went home because they were in tents. We just laughed at them was we watched DVD's all morning in the comfort of our nice dry camper. haha





We went to see Santa and Mrs Claus, but Zack was less than thrilled to talk to them.





One of the nature items to see at East Harbor are the glacial grooves. I remember seeing these as a kid when we camped here. Sydney had some other thoughts on what the glacial grooves would be and went to go pout (and probably cry!) and she told us they weren't cool. Here she is pouting!!





The beach was very soft and sandy. In fact, the majority of it had a sandbar! That was nice for the kids to go play on, while I enjoyed laying on the beach :)









We made a camping speciality, "fire pies". We were very careful this time not to burn them, like we often do. The kids actually ate several of them, this will be added to our camping menu!





On the way home we stopped at the Marblehead lighthouse.




This place was cool because we could see Cedar Point. So close, but so far away. *sigh*

Maumee Bay State Park

Campground: Site 142
Dates: July 2 - 5, 2009 total $99

Weather: Nice, but chilly (for July!), highs low 80's, lows in the 60's

For the 4th of July we took an extended weekend camping trip to Maumee Bay. We camped in our "regular" site. The weekend was full of activities. We camped right next to Grandma & Grandpa Bachli (much to the kids delight, they had brought cookies AND suckers along!). We took several walks by the nature center and checked out all of the critters.

Here are some of the animals we saw on our walk. The baby deer and racoons were soooo cute!

We walked up the "big hill". It was pretty darn big, and it offered a nice view of the campground and lake. For July, it was surprisingly chilly - felt like it was late September. I can't remember the last time we wore jackets and long pants for the 4th.

Alan also enjoyed watching the kites flying. Hey, is he actually napping??

Alan made us a delicious breakfast outside one morning. On another morning we had cereal - and the kids informed me that they didn't want to use their bowls anymore, because they were "baby" bowls! what?? waaaaa I guess they are growing up. :)

One of the best, most anticipated (at least in my opinion!) is the ice cream social that the park puts on. Where else can you get an enormous ice cream cone for $1? Yummy!!!

Here's the whole gang.

The park also had a bike decorating craft, and then a bike parade. Zack shows off his patriotic spirit on his decked out bike.

Sydney tells Daddy how it should be done! ;)

That night there was a concern down by the lake. The kids had fun rolling down the hill, again and again.

As it got a little later, we decided to bust out our "fireworks". We had some party poppers, which ended up being harder than we thought to fire off. But somehow Zack got his to go...

Sydney needed some help with hers.

Next came the sparklers.

And no burned hands!!

For a treat we cooked some Jiffy Pop out on the camp stove.

By the end of the night, after treats and watching fireworks, the kids were exhausted. In fact Sydney fell asleep on Daddy's lap.

By Sunday it was finally warm enough to go down to the beach.

A shrewd marketer has given all of the kids in the campground a ticket for a free ride on the slide. It was so much fun, who can go down just once? So of course we bought more tickets for the kids. They had such a great time on it.

On the day we left the campground we found this caterpillar. It will eventually be a monarch butterfly. We took him home and it him in Sydney's butterfly house. Within a day it turned into a chrysalis and we are now patiently waiting for the butterfly to emerge!

Pokagon State Park

Campground: Site 328

Dates: June 19-21, 2009 total $51 (plus $7 entrance fee)
Weather: Nice and warm, highs in the 80's, lows in the 60's

Like always, a little black cloud tends to follow us to Pokagon. I'm just not sure why, but this trip started out with my comment "uh oh, I forgot my jacket". Well that would have been good enough, but sure enough a bigger bump was coming our way - our camper tire blew out on the turnpike!! That would not have even have been a big deal - we had a spare tire - but unfortunately Alan didn't have the right tool to get it off the camper! oh man. So we ended up going to Angola's Walmart to buy some tools, out to dinner, and then 3 hours later we made it back to the camper (which we left on the turnpike) and were on our way to the campground.

Look, there's our camper on the turnpike!!

Setting up the camper was breeze since we bought those Lynx leveler blocks, but not long after we started up our campfire it started to rain so we headed for bed. It rained really hard that night, but it was nice to hear as we snoozed. Luckily our campsite was on a little hill and it was not wet the next morning.

Saturday we spent down at the beach, which got pretty crowded. The kids had a blast playing in the sand and building a big trench for the water to pour through. That night we had a big campfire (and oh, Zack jumped on Alan's lap and Alan's chair broke!! waaa). On Sunday we went for a bike ride and Zack got a little out of control on a big hill and almost ran head first into a post. That was the scariest thing I've ever watched - Zack speeding towards an obstacle with no apparent way to stop! However after his initial sobbing, he was over it, and the camping trip went on. We went over to the horse barn and Sydney got to ride on the horse twice because Zack changed his mind about riding. A trip to the nature center finished our day and we packed up.

On the way home Alan was cautious about the the spare tire we were using and he thought we should stop and rest and let the tire cool down. We just happened to find this really cool ice cream parlor for a pit stop. It was a perfect ending to a fun camping trip!

Maumee Bay State Park

Campground: Maumee Bay State Park, Site 142
Dates: October 24-26, 2008, $60 total

Weather: Windy! Highs in the 50's, lows in the 40's

We seem to be having some bad luck with our trips to Maumee Bay. Even though it didn't rain (which was the forecast) it was really really windy on this trip. We camped with Grandma & Grandpa again, and they are starting to think that we are bad luck! We did have fun though, and stayed both nights. We did spend a majority of our time in our campers. On our nature walk we found the worlds biggest leaves, and got to make some more Jiffy pop popcorn, so the trip was still a success.

Hocking Hills

Campground: Hocking Hills State Park, Logan, OH - Site 164
Dates: Oct 2 - 5, 2008, $86 total
Weather: Nice, sunny, highs in 70's and lows around 50 I think

As a change from our normal camping trips, we had NO rain! The weather was competely beautiful. It was a little cool at night, but we stayed warm in the camper. The trip down to Hocking hills took a little longer than we expected, around 4 and a half hours I think. Try not to hit Columbus during rush hour next time!!

Zack did pretty good - he had his tonsils taken out just 4 days before our trip. We went to Ash Cave, Old Man's Cave, and the Rock house. We had donuts for breakfast at Grandma Fayes. Even though most of the sites at this campground weren't super private, we ended up with a really good one. We would like to stay there again.

Maumee Bay State Park

Maumee Bay State Park
Campground: Maumee Bay State Park, Site 142

Dates: Sept 12 - 14, 2008, $60 total ** only stayed Friday night

Weather: Rain Rain Rain, around 80, low in 60's

Rainy is the only thing to say about this trip. It was hardly a trip, we got there Friday night around 6:30, and left by 11am the next day! It was sprinkling when we set up, stopped a little bit for a soggy fire, and then just rained and rained and rained. Unfortunately, Grandma and Grandpa were there too, and they also decided to go home so we didn't get to visit with them much. And, go figure, the rain cleared up by 2pm on Saturday and it was nice (and humid) until 6pm on Sunday. We should have went back. Oh well, next time. Even though it was a quick trip, it was fun as always :)

Pokagon State Park

Campground: Pokagon State Park, IN, Site 519

Dates: August 1-3, 2008, $50 total plus $7 entrance fee

Weather: Sunny, high in 80's, low in 60's

You could say that the moment Alan accidentally pulled into the drive through of Taco Bell with the camper, it was a hint of what was in store for us that evening. Although he read me the riot act when I prompted him to go through the drive through on a previous camping trip, he some how had a major brain fart and didn't remember that the little driveway next to Taco Bell is actually the *drive thru* and not a road to the parking lot. But I digress... anyhow, as we made our loop around Taco Bell without causing any major damage to us or the building, it was a fraction of the damage that was almost caused when our truck almost slid into the back end of a car at a stop light on the lightly wet road. Thank god Alan is a quick thinker and avoided the situation by driving off the curb. Soon we'll be getting those new tires for the truck :)

When we got to the campground we headed over to our campsite, which we had picked a month earlier. The description said "flat" but we should have known better than anything at Pokagon is not really flat. So someone (who will remain nameless) had a great idea to pull the camper wheel up on top of a large flat rock that was found in the woods. Sure, that would have been a great plan, had the camper not rolled right off of it when we tried to unhook from the truck! Never mind, we just kept trying it again, and again, and oh, did I mention, we also forgot that we had put one of the chocks under the wheel and it made a large "crunch" sound when rolled over. Oops, now we'll also need to get some new chocks soon too. In desperation I suggested we get a new campsite. When that didn't pan out, we decided just to live with the unlevel situation and make the best of it.

It was an uneventful night, especially since we didn't get the camper set up until 9:30! Just off to bed and that was it. The next day we went for an early bike ride, a pony ride at the stable barn, and headed over to the beach for swimming. It was quite a relief as it was near 90 that day! After baking in the sun all day, we took long naps, and then hung out at our campsite. It was about that time Alan noticed that he had forgot to move the pin off the back of the truck bumper, so he took a trip to Menards and Walmart to find a new one.

The kids were up early the next day riding their bikes up and down our street. They loved doing that (while saying "wheeee!!!" the whole time) We then took a nature walk, and checked out the toboggan run. We hope to go there this winter. That was when the strange smell started to surface. At first it was just a little whiff, but as the afternoon progressed, the smell got strong and we found out that our grey water was leaking! Apparently there are many reasons that you should level the camper out, not just to avoid falling over in it.

Even with everything that went on, it was a great trip! It's never dull at Pokagon :)