Great Lakes Trip 2018: Lake Erie

February 1, 2019February 1, 2019 happyherronsLeave a comment

If you missed the first part of our Great Lakes Trip, you can catch up here.

* * *

On Sunday morning, we packed up the camper and left Four Mile Creek State Park to head to our next destination. We arrived at Maumee Bay State Park in Oregon, Ohio in the late afternoon. In addition to the 252 camping sites, the park’s 1,336 acres includes a resort lodge, cottages, a yurt, golf course, and a nature center.

We absolutely loved how the campground was set up. At the end of each loop was a cul-de-sac with six campsites. We booked one of the cul-de-sac sites and basically had the entire cul-de-sac to ourselves. The site was super spacious and the boys loved riding their bikes around the circle. I wish I had taken a picture of the whole cul-de-sac, but I forgot.

Great Lakes Trip 2018: Lake Ontario

January 30, 2019January 25, 2019 happyherronsLeave a comment

Last fall, while Chris and I were on our first annual date weekend in Shenandoah, we started to think about what our big trip for 2018 could be. One of us (I think it was Chris and Chris thinks it was me… so who knows??) came up with the idea of doing a trip around all five of the Great Lakes. We considered the idea of camping on the United States and Canada sides of each lake, but ultimately decided to stay stateside as the boys don’t have passports and we didn’t want to go through the hassle of getting them and going through customs.

One day Chris mentioned extending the trip beyond the Great Lakes and going a bit further south to Illinois before heading back home. Chris’s parents are from Illinois and Chris grew up spending summers with his grandparents in his parents’ hometown. He’s always wanted to show me and the boys the area, so it seemed like the perfect time to do it since we were so close.

After months of research and planning (thank you, Chris!), we established our route and booked all the campgrounds! This was our final itinerary:

Woodford State Park 2018

January 28, 2019January 28, 2019 happyherronsLeave a comment

We had plans to go camping Mother’s Day weekend, but ended up canceling them and stayed home instead. By the end of May, we were eager to go camping again as we’re not as able to camp in June due to hay season. Hay season began on May 23 for us this year. We finished up baling and stacking on Friday night, and we were able to leave Saturday morning to go camping.

We decided to check another state of our list and headed to Vermont! We left early Saturday morning and were all set up at Woodford State Park by 10:30 am. The campsite was nice (especially since we didn’t have a neighbor on our outdoor area side) but it was SO BUGGY.

Assateague Island 2018

January 24, 2019January 15, 2020 happyherrons1 Comment

We made reservations many months in advance to camp at Assateague Island National Seashore in April, but ultimately decided to change the date of our camping weekend to coordinate better with Carter’s baseball schedule. Assateague Island National Seashore was booked for the weekend we now wanted to visit the area so we booked a campsite at Assateague Island State Park instead.

Assateague Island is a 37 mile long barrier island in Maryland and Virginia. The island is best known for its wild horses, pristine beaches, and the Assateague Lighthouse. The wild horses, who are owned and managed by the National Park Service, are the island’s most popular residents and a popular tourist attraction for the island.

Spring Break 2018: North Carolina, Part 2

June 29, 2018 happyherronsLeave a comment

If you missed North Carolina, Part 1, you can catch up here.

On Friday morning, we played around the campsite and ate an early lunch. After lunch, we headed to Mike & Eric’s friends’ goat farm in Rougemont, North Carolina. Elodie Farms is a 1910s tobacco farm turned into a goat dairy farm by Ted and Sandra. They have around 40 mix breed goats (and a donkey!) on 17+ acres of pasture and make fresh goat cheese and crackers among other things!

Spring Break 2018: North Carolina, Part 1

June 28, 2018June 28, 2018 happyherronsLeave a comment

Oh my! I have been slacking on keeping the blog up to date on our camping adventures! Guess it’s time to play a little catch up….

If you missed the first part of our spring break trip, you can catch up here: Shenandoah, Part 1 | Shenandoah, Part 2

We arrived at Rolling View Campground in Falls River State Recreation Area around 4:30 pm. We set up the camper, the boys rode their bikes around the loop, and we headed over to check out the playground. Hooray for campgrounds with playgrounds!

Spring Break 2018: Shenandoah, Part 2

April 9, 2018January 15, 2020 happyherronsLeave a comment

If you missed Part 1, you can catch up on our first day and half in Shenandoah here!

After we finished our lunch, we headed to Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. There are almost 70 overlooks on the 105 mile stretch of Skyline Drive with stunning views of the Shenandoah Valley.

We entered Skyline Drive at the Thornton Gap entrance station in Luray at milepost 31.5. Jackson fell asleep on the drive over so he missed out on our first view point, hence his absence from our family picture below. Our first stop on Skyline Drive was Hazel Mountain Overlook at milepost 33:

Spring Break 2018: Shenandoah, Part 1

April 7, 2018January 15, 2020 happyherronsLeave a comment

Two weeks ago, we kicked off our camping season by heading down south for spring break! Our school district always has spring break the week before Easter, which was early this year, so it wasn’t typical spring break weather.

The Shenandoah area was forecasted to receive about a foot of snow a few days before we were booked to stay there, which threw us through a loop. Chris ended up booking a site at Pocahontas State Park in Virginia where they weren’t predicting as much snow as a backup. Luckily, Shenandoah only ended up getting about four inches of snow. Chris called the campgrounds the Wednesday and Thursday before we left to check on the snow situation and help us determine where we were going. We ultimately decided to stick to our original plan and head to Shenandoah as the campground was basically snow free.