camping

Seven Quick Takes

/ CAstfalk / 4 Comments

7 Quick Takes

Family Camping: The Sequel Edition

Last Labor Day weekend, we gave family camping another shot. After several years’ hiatus allowing our babies and toddlers to grow into preschoolers, the six of us tent camped for a weekend. You can read about our adventures with pit toilets and fish pedicures here, but all in all, it was well worth it.

This year, we chose better when it came to the facilities, more memories were made, more lessons learned.

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The “Facilities”  and Site Location Make a Difference

We went from putrid pit toilets and no showers last year to pristine bathrooms and showers this year. What a difference it makes! My camping bathroom standards aren’t ridiculously high. We are in the outdoors after all, and I expect a certain number of moths, spiders, and other creepy crawlies to make their way inside. But these bathrooms had next to none! My only quibble is the fact that no paper towels were available, only weak hand driers. (But that also probably contributed to the cleanliness factor.)

While this site was another previously-unseen walk-in, its steep incline from parking spot to tent site amounted to a matter of yards. No excruciating, back-breaking treks up and down with gear or to the potty. Speaking of the potty . . .

mossy trail

The mossy trail behind our tent.

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Seven Quick Takes

/ CAstfalk / 2 Comments

7 Quick Takes

Resumption of Camping Edition

My husband and I began tent camping together before we had children and continued with regularity for years with our young children. We toted babies and toddlers. We relished the outdoors. And then, around the time we had an infant and a toddler in addition to our two older children, it became a bit much. My husband feared an unknown woodsy calamity. I’ll admit, our last excursion, with only three of the children, was a bit challenging. My sole recollection is my toddling 10-month-old stretching out of her Bumbo seat to gather dead leaves from the forest floor to stuff into her mouth while we wrestled with tent setup. So, we took a break. Our youngest is now three, so on Labor Day weekend, we gave camping another shot. Here’s what I learned.

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All Pit Toilets Are Not Created Equal

We’ve camped in state park campgrounds with pit toilets before. Not recently and not often, but we’ve done it. My boy scout has done it fairly often. It’s not a big deal. At least it hadn’t been. The pit toilets at this particular Pennsylvania state park stunk. Sure, you say, pit toilets stink. No, I don’t mean “stink.” I mean eye-watering, gagging, covering-my-mouth-and-nose-with-my-shirt stink. Putrescence. Is that a word? I think that’s a word. Lesson learned: If you’ve smelled one pit toilet, you’ve smelled one pit toilet. (Since we like this park, I was relieved to learn they are installing flush toilets over the winter! Yay!)

Michael State Forest

Michaux State Forest

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