Family Camping 2026

Hey everyone, it's kind of that time of year again, where my camping family gets together for camping over the weekend. This year was kind of different, not just because the parent generation has been doing this for 40 year, but also because Canada was on fire and the smoke was coming down to the northern states, which included us. It started Wednesday from what I remember, I went outside and smelled something burning, and I'm like "Canada's on fire again, isn't it," and sure enough it was. The smoke was so thick the air quality was at the worst levels and was like over 500, where 3 minutes outside was like smoking a pack of cigarettes. This was also a week after MMT's wedding, so I had a lot of packing to do, and since the air quality was so bad we prepped for basically spending the whole time in our hotel (because mskate and I were just going to visit while staying the night at the hotel). I basically brought our entire game shelf and some lego and puzzle kits. This was also 1 week after mskate got back from Friends for Life, which meant I had to move all the stuff from the small car to the minivan at her parents house since they took the van on the trip. Whatever.

We head up on Friday night, and it was super uneventful. On our way up we went to the outlet mall and got some stuff from our favorite stores; crocks for mskate from the crocks store, gold fish crackers for me from the pepridge farm store, and disney princess soaps for mskate from bath and bodyworks. I got special fast food from the restaurant that's by the outlet mall. On our drive up we found a radio station that played 90s to now, which was fun to listen to. We checked into our hotel and got everything unpacked, and checked out the amenities. Something interesting is that they had Boomerang in their cable package. I had ramen for dinner and mskate had easy mac. We made a stop at the camp ground to drop off some 40th anniversary stuff. Because it was the evening the line to check in was super long, so we parked over by the boat launch and had to walk about a mile from the boat launch to where everyone was camping, and because the air was so bad we were doing it in KN95 masks. We kind of just said hello to everyone, dropped the things off, and went back to the hotel. I got some McDonald's after that to finish off the day.

Saturday started off pretty basic, just having continental breakfast at the hotel. We loaded up some stuff to take with us to the camp ground (food cooler some activities). Since it was more early morning and people weren't checking in, we were able to check in no waiting. We had met up with everyone and had some fun with everyone. One of the activities we brought was spot it, and that went over REALLY well. We played that for like 2 hours. For lunch I had a hamburger, and I shared my ketchup with our friends who I used their stove to cook with. We were able to hang out for about 4 hours before we had to go back to the hotel because the air quality was just that uncomfortable.

We hung out at the hotel for a couple hours, just watching boomerang and playing webkins while breathing clean air. Around 4PM we went back to the campsite where we started to get ready for dinner, pizza with the group. Mskate, mom, and I went to get it for everyone. We had a big van that could hold all the orders. We normally got it from a place called BC's pizza, but they closed down and according to my dad, the restaurant was completely leveled, so we got it from a place that was right next to a gun store (and had some jokes about that). Once we got back we divided up the orders to each family by what they ordered. We all ate together and had good fellowship. After dinner I worked on building the fire, just laying the foundation and using up some of the pizza boxes we had. That night we made smores and I brought out the peeps. Those went over really well, because they're marshmallows but with some extra flavor, and they ended up being really great. Mskate and I weren't able to stay very long, because of the air quality, but it was still a fun "make our presence known." When we got back to the hotel we just hung out for a couple hours before going to bed.

It's now Sunday morning, and just kind of our final day. I got some continental breakfast 2 hours before mass, and made a couple of waffles for later. Mass was pretty good, the homily was about a saint that shares the name with one of our camping friends, which was pretty cool. Breakfast was the big thing though. On the Sunday of our vacation we all come together and have a communal breakfast, sharing what we [still] have. I brought freeze dried hashbrowns, spam, ketchup, hot sauce, the 2 waffles from the hotel, and a slice of cheddar cheese. I wasn't exactly sure how popular my things would be, but they all went pretty quickly. Multiple people said "I haven't had spam since I was a kid, this is great to have some again." I put the waffles on the griddle to heat them up, and they basically got picked right when I took them off. I made the hashbrowns kind of late in the breakfast time and mskate said "I don't think people are going to want them," but when I put them out they got picked really quickly. We left after breakfast, and the drive home was pretty uneventful. We got home and I unloaded everything with a little relaxing, and the next day I unpacked everything. Great little time. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.