Hey everyone, it's that time of year again, the time when I go camping with my family and friends. This is the first time I went camping as a married man, and got my own camp site. I would normally stay with my parents either in their hotel or on their site, but now that I'm married and we asked for camping equipment on our wedding registry I got my own pokematic site with mskate. In the week leading up I gathered up pretty much all the equipment and supplies, and mskate packed our clothes. I also took the Friday off so we could get there right at check in time, and do some shopping at the outlet mall on the way there.
Friday started out pretty basic. I loaded up all the gear in our SUV and treated it like pretty much any weekday morning. Around 11 we got on the road. I needed to get my allergy shot and pick-up some things from my parents, and since they are on the way we stopped there. It was just a quick little stop, nothing big. After the parents stop and an hour of driving we went to the outlet mall. We were going to stop at the Coleman store since we needed table cloth clips and wanted some spare tent steaks, but the Coleman store was no more so we had to skip it. We did stop at the Pepperidge Farm store and got some goldfish crackers and millanno cookies, and some iced tea bags. After Pepperidge Farm we went to the Adidas store because mskate needed new tennis shoes. I've never been shoe shopping with mskate before, but I know what the comedians say about women and shoe shopping, so I brought my Nintendo Switch in and sat at one of the benches. It didn't take her very long, but I wanted to be sure, and I did get some animal crossing in, so that was good. The last store we went to was a new hot sauce place. The clerk asked if I needed any help so I asked him for some recommendations. I settled on fusion garlic and pepper hot sauce, and that was our shopping trip. After shopping was lunch. We were going to go to this restaurant that gives you big portions and is good for getting camping food, but unfortunately they had a line out the door so we went to a burger place. I got a pizza and fried pickles to get left overs, and mskate had a bunless burger. After lunch it was back on the road.
After about another hour of driving we arrived at the state park. Since I went camping with my dad and brother earlier in the year (link here) we didn't need to get a recreation pass. I checked us in and got our site. We pulled up and started the set-up process. This was the first time setting up our tent, and even though it was my first time I'm a bit of a tent expert so I did it no problem. Well, only slight problem since it kind of requires 2 people to get the poles all set right, so my godfather helped me with that. After the tent was set-up I pulled the air mattress out and started inflating it. Fun fact, I somehow ended up with the air mattress pump my parents used for 20 years when they camped, so I used that on our air mattress. After I got the air mattress inflated mskate set-up our sleeping bags and the clothes. Since we didn't have table cloth clips I improved with bungee cords. With everything set-up we visited with my godfather and his family. For dinner we had walking tacos, primarily because it has minimal clean-up (just need to clean the electric skillet after heating the taco meat). I forgot our extension chord, but thankfully one of our friends had an extra one I could borrow. My parents brought up an extension cord when they came up on Saturday. I also somehow forgot the dish soap. I don't know how, I had it out with everything, and I swear I had it in the car, but even after unpacking everything I couldn't find it. We got some from the camp store, and now that's part of our camping equipment.
Friday night was pretty low key. Mskate brought pot holder materials for making finger weaving crafts. She showed my god-siblings how to do it and some other camping friends, and everyone really enjoyed it. After dinner we went to the ice cream store that's just outside the camp ground. Mskate had a special vegan gluten free sunday, and I had a mixed ice cream thing with brownie bits. We had a camp fire at one of our friend's site later in the evening. Just a calm first night. I was going to take a shower that night but the water was too cold, so I said "I'll try this tomorrow." The air mattress was a little under inflated, so when I got in mskate shot up, and when I got off mskate sunk low. The following day I inflated the air mattress more so it would be more comfortable.
Saturday started out pretty basic. For breakfast we were going to have hash browns and bacon. I brought a box of freeze dried hash browns and basically figured hydrating them would be similar to other freeze dried hash browns I've had in the past (hydrate in the box), but they were "hydrate in the microwave." No big problem though, I just took a bowl of water and heated it in the electric skillet, and then when they were hydrated I took them off the skillet and fried up some bacon for the grease; who needs butter or oil when you have bacon grease. The hash browns and bacon was good. After breakfast mskate and I drove to some different showers and they had hot water. When we got back I told everyone in our group that the other showers had hot water. Between breakfast and lunch we primarily did the finger weaving and pot holder craft. I made us 2 pot holders and mskate made a 4 foot finger weave. Mskate and I also went on a little walk, just down the beach trails so nothing really big.
My parents got up to camp around lunch time, so we said our hellos and got lunch ready. Mskate had hot dogs and I had a ham and cheese mini-sub. They heated up something on our skillet, but I don't remember what. After lunch it was time for the beach. I didn't really feel like swimming, but I put on my trunks and went out to the beach. I brought my metal detector I bought last year on black Friday and combed the beach. Unfortunately all I found was 3 bottlecaps, but oh well, I helped clean the beach some. After metal detecting I read another chapter of my Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest manga novel. After a chapter I decided to join everyone else in the lake. It was REALLY cold and I only went up to about my waste. I visited with the group, but went back in pretty soon after. After some relaxing mskate and I went around trying to book a Disney vacation. We went to the camp store to use their wifi, but that wasn't working well, so then we went to my parent's hotel to use their wifi. We had to use my dad's laptop since mskate's ipad and both of our phones weren't working right with the website. We were able to book our trip and it's going to be over our 1 year anniversary. That will be fun.
It's now approaching dinner time. My mom and mskate went to pickup the pizzas that everyone ordered over the morning. This is when things got fun. No one really planned it this way, but everyone started to gather at our site, and mskate and I ended up hosting our first dinner party. After dinner I started setting up the campfire on our site. When I got the wood and paper set-up it was time for ice cream. Mskate got a different vegan ice cream thing in a gluten free cone, and I think I just got some basic seasalt caramel. When we got back I got the fire started, and then did a little treasure hunt with my youngest god-brother. I took the bottle caps I found earlier and buried them in the sand just below the surface, and we dug them up after finding them with the metal detector. I knew when I was his age I would have really enjoyed an activity like that, and he enjoyed it too. The fire was fun, and it was cool hosting everyone. I brought some potatoes wrapped in foil to make in the fire, so I put the potato in the fire and made a baked potato. Everyone was really impressed by it and the idea of doing a potato bar next year was floated. Before I went to bed I decided to give the showers a try, and they were warm enough to shower in, yay.
Sunday was a pretty low key day. I had a chocolate muffin for breakfast and then got dressed for church. We all went to the spot in the back that we always sit in. It was perfect for our group when we were much larger since we would pretty much fill the entire section, but now that we've shrunk significantly in size we only filled up about 1 pew. On our way to church I saw a garage sale advertised, so on our way back I decided to stop there and see if there was anything good. There was an Indiana Jones brand machete for sale, but I had to pass. When we got back I pulled out our food to share with everyone. I had a ham and cheese mini-sub and some bacon. I gave everyone else the rest of the sub buns, ham, and cheese (because I didn't want to bring it home). After brunch we packed up our stuff and got ready to go. Since we had the party at our site the previous night there was still a lot of other people's stuff at our site, so I made an announcement to get your stuff since we're checking out. I wasn't able to get the tent back in the original bag, and I tried when I got home but I just wasn't able to get all the air out and it just didn't fit back in the original bag. When we get a yard I'm probably going to try to get it back in the bag since I can do it on the grass, but for now it's rolled up as best I can and in our camp bin. Overall it was a fun trip. Next year we'll bring more finger weaving stuff and probably foil wrapped potatoes since that went over so well. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
