Summer Vacation: #inkripples

For me, June always marks the transition from spring to summer. School ends (towards the end of the month here), businesses change to their summer hours, and people go on vacation.

We usually only take one week long vacation over the summer, but we also take many weekend camping trips. Thanks to these many "mini-vacations" I have lots of great memories with friends and family at wonderful places to visit.

When my husband and I first married, we were tent campers. How we ever managed to fit our tent, screen house, multiple chairs, clothes, food, and the half dozen or so books I "might want to read" in the back of our hatchback I have no idea. But we did it for multiple weekends every year.

After the night of the eternal thunderstorm, we moved from a tent to a pop-up. Then to a bigger pop-up. And recently to a travel trailer.

This year we haven't finalized where we're going to go for our week long trip, but I thought I'd share some places we've been that we really enjoyed. (Click the names for more information on the places)


Samson State Park
What better use for an abandoned military compound? In addition to the sites along the lake, there is the Military Museum where you can learn the history of the park and the years it was used by the Navy and then the Air Force. There are also bike/hiking trails that take you past some of the buildings that were used for housing and other things on the base as well as a cemetery from the Revolutionary War.

Military Museum

Francis Slocum State Park
This one one of our favorite places to go tent camping. We stayed on a great walk-up site here one summer. In addition to the great site, it's close to Ricketts Glen State Park, the place I based some of my descriptions from QUEST OF THE HART on. (Those stone steps that are sometimes easy to walk up and sometimes waist high really do exist!)

One set of natural stairs in the park

[sorry for the grainy picture, but this is from a very old camera. Like 1995/1996 old :-)]

Assateague Island State Park
Famous for the wild horses that roam the area, we've camped behind the sand dunes on this beach about three times. If you love falling asleep to the sound of the waves, or having your camper rocked by a horse rubbing its shoulder, this place is for you. Try the clamming and kayaking in the ocean, too! LOTS of fun!!!

Wild Horses in the campground

Bar Harbor Maine
Tied for my favorite place, I would go back here in a heartbeat. While I'm not a big biker, I really enjoyed the old carriage roads that were made into bicycle paths. Wide smooth pathways through the trees with no cars (Yeah, I have a thing about biking on the road.) Bar Harbor was stunning, an I wandered around trying to imagine just what houses ha inspire Nora Roberts' Calhoun series. Acadia National Park was stunning. Hiking trails, thunder hole, Cadillac Mountain. So many things to do.

Bar Harbor Maine, low tide

Thunder Hole

View from Cadillac Mountain

Pigeon Forge Tennessee
Tied with Bar Harbor for my favorite place, I'd love to go back. In addition to the amazing shows and activities there are the Smokey Mountains. Lots of hiking, or drive-in picnic spots in the shade by a creek. The easy pace makes it one relaxing place to be.

The Smokey Mountains

Bear cub we passed in the park

Add to the ripples and share where some of your favorite places to go for summer vacation are.


Don't forget to stop by Katie Carroll and Kai Strand's sites for their #inkripples posts!!

Vacation

Wow! Where does the time go? We just got back from a 9 day vacation -2 spent driving, the rest, mostly, spent in Pigeon Forge, TN. It was an awesome trip. We went hiking in the Smokies, played at Dollywood, and went to a cool science-y type hands on place called "WonderWorks". We also hit the aquarium in Gatlinburg.

We spent a day at the race track in Bristol watching the modifieds and the trucks race- it was very cool- great track to go to. I got a new tony Stewart shirt, my husband(DH) got a neat Bristol shirt, and our son(DS) got a Denny Hamlin "COT" car (as he's calling it).

We swam almost everyday in the pool at the campground- great place recommended by some people at PUX. DH and DS drove go karts, and we all did the bumper cars (I think I did the most hitting).

We went to the Comedy Barn and laughed through the whole show. The next day we went to breakfast and a show- we saw the Blackwood Singers (and a comedy sketch). I loved it- they are a great Southern Gospel group with an interesting backstory.

All in all it was a great time away- we liked it so much we are talking about going back in the winter.

School is just around the corner- DS just learned who his teacher is today (a little late in my opinion to be getting school supply lists, but at least we got it!!!)

Hope to post up some pictures in the next few days- especially the one of the bear (yes, it is a real bear).

Great Weekend

Is there anything better than just sitting around and relaxing at your campsite? (Once you've gotten your pop-up all set-up and said "Hi!" to all your old friends, and some new ones too, of course.)

Just lazing around in the sun watching your son play with friends and chatting with your friends while enjoying a cold, frosty "root beer".

We had a wonderful time with our friends this weekend hanging out at Little Buffalo State Park in Pennsylvania. We did some geocaching, toured a working grist mill (complete with water wheel- it was WAY cool!)

We also had a great pot luck and after went running from walls of rain. We knew the storm was coming, and were frantically packing up the stuff from outside the camper and putting up the awning (had been told there were high winds expected) when the rain moved in. You could see the line of rain move as if it were a wall of water (you could hear the roar it made too).

The extra day we added allowed us to spend time with friends at the pool (complete with spray ground and water slides). The kids had a great time in the spray ground and pool, while the adults enjoyed whipping around the turns of the water slide. It was a blast.

I got to see a Kindle (wow are they cool!!!) and finished reading the first part of Rogue Warrior. It is a very interesting book about the man who founded Navy SEAL team 6. (I just renewed it today so I can finish it- I haven't taken a lot of time to read lately.)

I talked about my blog, and my princess story (yes, I am still working on that- maybe I'll post some new parts this week) and found a possible proof reader (Yeah!!!- It's always nice to get another view point that says "Hey you missed something" for example, "maybe you should add some more mauve instead of all pink."- It's been taken under advisement.)

What a great relaxing weekend it was.

Assateague Island

We had an amazing time this past weekend camping at Assateague Island State Park with some of our internet camping friends (real people friends, not the horses).

The horses walk (and run) through the campground as if the people aren't even there.

We even had some crash our potluck dinner- but we convinced them they'd rather not stay.

It was a great time away with friends and family. Looking forward to more outings this summer!!!