Firefly Camping

For camping nights 11 and 12 on the year, we stayed at George Washington State Park in Chepachet, RI.  This is the third state we have visited with the new van.   The campground is right off route 44 and on the Bowdish reservoir.  The sites were pretty large, there was a nice little beach on the reservoir, a nature center that had fun kids activities, including making origami sailboats, a plenty of fish to catch.   We arrived at the campground around 6pm on a Thursday evening and quickly got a fire going.  There was large down tree behind the site and kids gravitated to it immediately.  Around 8pm the rain came and we moved to the van.   On Friday, it rained on and off throughout the day. I was able to get a short trail run in and then fished with the kids.  Neil caught 7 or 8 fish in total. On Saturday, it was still pretty wet out, so we packed up and hit a diner for breakfast on the way home. Neil and Scot in the Van Nat with a b...

Amy and I had (or mostly) the 4th week in August off.  With a family vacation that fell through, we decided to take the van out for some more nights camping.   We headed back to Harold Parker State Park in Andover, MA for a quick night away from home.  Neil met up with one of his new classmates, Trevor, and his father, Rob and did some biking and fishing while Nat enjoyed the playground.  For this trip, we put the top bunk back in the back and were successfully able to get one kid up front on the cab bunk and then one on the upper bunk.  Still somewhere around 5am, we ended up with everyone crammed into one bed :).  Enjoying My Coffee Watching the Sun Rise

This weekend we took the van down across the canal and into Cape Cod and stayed at Shawme Crowell State Park in Sandwich.  While only 90 minutes from our house, the Cape can be tricky as bridge and coastal traffic can easily double that time.   For this trip, we opted to leave on a Saturday morning letting the kids sleep in their own beds on Friday.  Neil had just done an overnight at the Hale reservation and definitely needed the extra sleep.   We also finally got a chance to camp with our friends, Leigh, John, and their two kids, Owen and Jack, after a few aborted attempts over the last year due to sickness.   On Saturday morning we went straight to the beach (Town Neck Beach) where we relaxed and climbed on rocks for a few hours.  Mid afternoon we headed over the the campground and after we got setup, I made a beer run, literally.   We had a relaxing evening and relaxing morning before leaving to come home mid day.  I got a...