Camping Memories

My daughter Blayne and I recently took a trip to an old campground which we used to camp at.  It sadly is closed now due to lack of funding from the State.  My sister and I, every year used to take all of the kids camping.  We started this when her son was 2 and my youngest Dominic was 3.  My two older kids would always bring a friend.  No husbands.  One week.  Fun memories!  First we started with tent camping.  In the beginning it was hard with they boys being so little.  Diapers, pull-up, juice, treats, food, binky's, toys!   After a few years of this, we moved to a campground that had better bike paths, because, by then the younger boys were riding bike a lot more.  That's when Greg bought me a pop-up camper!   Oh the luxury!   We stayed here for many years.  My daughter even made friends with a lot of kids there, and would coordinate it so they would all be there at the same time.  They kept these friendships for years after we stopped.  After my older kids were to busy with sports and work during the summers, we moved to a campground that had cabins.  They were the best!  Showers!  Refrigerators!  Yay!  We started inviting our friends and their kids along since it was just our boys and our nephews.  This camping usually consisted of us girls reading all day, while the boys ran wild with their friends.  This was wonderful, especially since were older now :)   We continued camping there until just a few years ago when Dominic was 18.  We had so many found memories of those summer weeks that we spent camping!


Some older pictures I found.....You can tell the ageing best by my nephew Josh who is in the front...

My Dominic in the blue

2009

Josh in the grey shirt

Dominic on the end in red

2010

Josh in the green shirt

Dominic in red 

looks like the same shirt lol

2011

Josh in the front in the black shirt

Dominic in the back in black

2012

And Josh in the front in the black shirt

Dominic in the back in white

When I heard that our very first campground had been closed,  I decided I wanted to take a drive out there to see it.  Once we were there, I realized how amazing it was so I took some pictures :)

This first picture is of the little diner that was used to eat at, in the small town that the campground is in.  We were planning on eating there, but it was closed.  We asked around about it, and were told that the owner financially had to close it.  It has been closed for about 2 years.  So sad!

After asking around, the locals told us about a new little diner that was close by.  It was called, The Lil' Bit.  The food was delicious!   Instead of rolls before our lunch came, this is what they brought to our table.  Banana bread and whipped butter!  Yummy!!

Here are some pictures of the campground

This used to be a pavilion.

The playground

Just a creepy "Blair Witch" type of drawing.

An old campsite marker

It was a bit sad seeing how deserted and over-grown this once beautiful state part is now.  Looking around brought back so many memories and it made me realize how glad I am that my kids had the chance to take advantage of such a wonderful thing as camping with their family and friends.  They will have those adventures and memories forever!

xoxo