I’m not quite sure why taking Son tent camping made my list of things to do before I turned 40. I do enjoy camping and I expected that Son would love it. He’s an outdoorsy kid and thrives in fresh air when he can play and have lots of independence. It was definitely a fun experience to live it through his eyes for a few days.

 

We headed to Jellystone Park in Sturbridge, MA for a three-day, end-of-summer/Son’s birthday celebration. We arrived and set up camp at the corner of Picnic Basket Lane and Oak Street (they really play up the Yogi Bear theme). Our campsite was up a small wooded hill from a playground, which was perfect. Son could see when other kids were on the playground and could go play unsupervised. It was nice for us to be able to sit around the campfire and see him playing with new friends. There was also a large family at the campsite next to us with five kids of varying ages, the oldest about Son’s age, and they did lots of playing together over the next few days.

We made a fire as we unpacked everything and attempted to cook dinner. I’ve never been to a campsite where they didn’t provide a cooking grate for the campfire. (Luckily I brought something we could use). And I’ve never been to a campsite that provides two electrical outlets at every campsite. (I really wish we had brought our Keurig. It was much too much of a hassle to make a fire to make coffee in the morning. But it’s New England and there’s never a Dunkin Donuts far away.)

It got dark shortly after dinner and we sat around the campfire playing cards with Son, who relished in staying up late, hanging out and playing with his parents.

The only negative to camping was sleeping. Three of us sleeping on a queen sized blow up mattress was not the best, especially for me who was stuck in the middle. But the weather was perfect for camping. It was cloudy to sunny every day and would get down to the 50s at night – perfect snuggling up in your sleeping bag weather! We had just had a humid spell and honestly, I think we chose the best three days of the summer for camping out, weatherwise.

So this camp (and I suspect most camps) have quiet hours. The 10 or 11 pm starting time wasn’t an issue for my family, but you are supposed to stay quiet until 9am and that was much harder. Son wakes up early, like 5:30 am early. We kept him fairly quiet in the tent for an hour but at 6:30, we gave up and changed and left the campground to get some coffee and breakfast. It worked out well!

We drove around the area a little bit – visiting my family’s old summer house nearby – and stopping for a few things at the store. When we returned, we decided to rent a boat and go fishing. The lack of sleep started to catch up with us at this point in the day…Husband left the worms for fishing on a picnic table (we used salami. Needless to say we didn’t catch anything) and Son dropped his fishing pole in the lake which was swallowed up quickly by the swampy bottom. There were a lot of tears. Back to the campsite for lunch and then we headed to the Aqua Center.

For some reason there are two pools at this campsite and one is free and one is not. The Aqua Center was of course the non-free one, but it was also very close to our tent and they had a pretty cool waterslide that Son loved. I think he went down the waterslide 100 times. Husband and I got to sit in a hot tub. I floated alone in the pool for about 5 minutes in utter peace. It was well worth the $9.

We headed back to the campsite afterwards and I showered and changed while the boys went to the arcade and camp store. I started a fire to get some nice, hot coals going for dinner. Can I just share here that we really had no idea what time it was? We had no cell service so our cell phones were always packed away, and my FitBit watch ran out of juice the night before, so I also packed that away. So we started a fire just because we felt like dinnertime should be soon. Husband and I sat lazily by the fire while Eli played at the playground and would occasionally come check on us, only to run off again.

Our night was similar to the night before. We made hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner. Eli ran back and forth from our area to the playground and played with his friends. His birthday was the next day, but he convinced us to let him open his presents early, so his friends came over to help him put together some lego superheroes and play with his new toys, but they all ended up at the playground for most of the  night. We hung out and had some smores and shared some glow sticks with our friends next door. We played some more cards and waited until the fire got low before putting it out. Everyone was zonked by the time we went to bed, but again, sleeping wasn’t the best.

Friday we tried to keep Son quiet again for as long as possible. Even though he stayed up late and was active all day long, he still doesn’t sleep past 6 am. Again, we kept him in the tent for an hour or so. Then Husband took Son somewhere and kept him busy while I slept. I felt like it was 10 minutes, but apparently it was 90 minutes (whoops!) Then we had some breakfast at the campground restaurant and took a long walk back to our campsite. By the time we got back, it was time to start packing up to check out by noon.

Overall, it was a great trip. I would definitely go again. It would be fun to go with another family or two next time and for Son to have his own tent to share with another child. And knowing that there is electrical outlets at each site is helpful in planning next time too. Yes, I will proudly bring my coffeemaker! When your kid wakes up every day at dawn, you needs access to lots of coffee.