Adventures in Camping 2008 - Part IOur first trip of the season and we decided on Kings Mountain (SC) State Park mainly since it would be a relatively short trip, it was someplace new, there were hookups and reservations were available.
We picked H up early from school and were on the road Friday by 2:45. At 4pm we pulled into the park and were pleasantly surprised at all the trees and greenery - it was like driving down the blue ridge parkway! We had reserved a site just to make sure we had one but arrived early enough to scout out the campground and choose a better site.
We did our normal type-a anal set up - is this good? Maybe more to the outside, lets pull up, cock it to the left.....
we have got to get better at just parking, leveling and calling it good. But once we decided (or should I say, I threw up my hands and said "enough, leave it here") it was pretty fast setup at the site. Chris and H pulled out the beds, I emptied out the gear then made beds, Chris put up the camper awning and a new tarp over the picnic table - all in all pretty easy.
We tried some new things this trip - we set up the camper awning, we hooked to the camp's water and electric, we bought a new 12x12 popup tarp to go over the table and had a 6' folding table to cook off of. It all worked well and the entire weekend went amazingly smooth.
As Chris and I prepared dinner, Hannah went exploring (looking at boys) on her bike. She spent alot of time exploring the campground on her bike and did real well on it.
Saturday we had a typical camp breakfast of sausage, eggs and camp toast. Aaaahhhh, morning coffee....
Then we went for a bike ride to the history farm (with old buildings of a cabin, outhouse, smokehouse, barn, cottin gin, blacksmith, etc...) and the lakes.
It was a bit hilly but Hannah and i survived. I had gotten new gears on my bike for mothers day and it worked sooo well - much nicer riding with 21 gears!! We went back to camp for lunch and some lounging in the sun then went to the National Historic Park to see the Kings Mountain Revolutionary War battlefield. We did a 1.5 mile loop, reading about the battle along the way and seeing a few monuments. At 5pm the park closed and we headed back to camp for dinner, a fire and s'mores.
Sunday morning was a beautiful day. Cool enough to have a fire in the morning and enjoy the site. We packed up and headed out by noon and were home and unpacked before the afternoon storms hit.
For our first trip of the season it was nice and close to home, had electric and water hookups and it was early enough in the season that it was not too hot. I enjoyed going somewhere new and Hannah enjoyed touring the park on her bike. We will put this down as a park to return to sometime when we have a short weekend to camp!
