Camping for the weekend
I'm going camping this evening and I'll be away until Sunday morning.
I looking forward to trying out the new tent with my three children plus two of their friends. Yikes. Me plus five children. Am I
crazy?
Don't bother to answer me, that's a rhetorical question.
I do hope to get a little geocaching in while we're away. Pictures and more when I get back.
Labels: camping, geocache, vacation
Our camping trip
We had a wonderful three days in
Otter River State Forest. Glorious weather and great accommodations.
If you'd like to see what it was like, have a look at
my tabblo. I've got some pictures of the yurt and the area around about.
If you haven't ever tried camping, then yurting is a wonderful easy way into it!
Labels: camping, vacation, yurting
Changing my Blogger template
Warning: I'm updating my blogger template and my blogroll. I apologize for the big RSS feed updates. I'll let it all settle down for now.
I'm going camping with my children (Mom's staying at home) for the first three days of next week. We'll be at the lovely
Otter River state forest in Massachusetts.
Oh, and we'll not be packing our own tent. This time we're staying in a
yurt! You can see them in the picture on the Otter River page.
I'll post some pictures after we get back. I can't wait!
Labels: camping, vacation, yurt
Camping Memories
I posted a comment to George's recent
post about camping and received several comments and e-mails back about it. So I decided to put up a post about camping trips we've taken over the last 10 years and our favorite places to camp at. We're not deep woods type of campers. Any site we've stayed at is within a few miles of a regular grocery store. And we do like campgrounds that aren't too crowded and that are tent-friendly.
So here are my favorite sites.
1. Calvin Coolidge State Park in Vermont. This park has wonderful lean-tos that were built in the 1930 by the
CCC. One of my favorite memories there is getting gold panning information from the park ranger, and standing in a
freezing stream trying to pan for gold. We didn't have the right equipment but we did have a lot of fun. Plymouth is quite close to Quechee, home of the Quechee Gorge. Each year Quechee also hosts a great hot air balloon festival over the June weekend closest to father's day -- well worth the trip.
2. Towshend State Park in southern Vermont. This has a beautiful rangers cabin built by the CCC. There are some campsites just by a river, so you can fall to sleep to the sound of water. Also nice hiking trails.
3. Myles Standish State Forest in southern Massachusetts. We spent a wonderful week right beside Curlew Pond. Lots of wonderful swimming and canoing, thanks to the loan a canoe from a fellow camper. The forest is a short distance from Cape Cod, so you can make day trips there without difficulty. And we met several people who had been camping there for more than 15 years each.
4. Otter River State Forest in western Massachusetts. I stayed there over Labor Day Weekend 2006, just me and the three children. We managed to visit a nearby drive-in movie theater. It was too late in the season for swimming and too wet for hiking. But we're visiting again in June and this time we're staying in a
Yurt. Otter River has four of these, each sleeping 4 or 6 people. It won't be the same as pitching our own tent, but I can't wait to try them out. The campground people say these are not good in very hot weather. I'm hoping early June will be on the cool side.
Besides these we've tried other sites in Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania. None of these are memorable enough that I can recall their names.
If you've not tried camping, now is a good time to start thinking about it. New tents are very light, easy to assemble and extremely waterproof. Tents go on sale shortly and they are
very cheap at the start of the season. It's a great family investment and the stuff of memories for years to come.
Have you got any favorite sites that you can recommend?
Labels: camping, vacation
