Our First Family Camping Trip

We went on our first family camping trip this weekend. My brother Dan invited us to join them on their annual July 4th Camping trip back in December, so we decided we'd give it a try. I'd grown up camping when I was in the Boy Scouts, and Cathie and her family used to camp all of the time, but we'd never done a family camp out like this. I was a little hesitant, but I was very pleasantly suprised in the end. We went down to Maumee Bay State Park near Toledo, OH. It was right on Lake Erie, and the camp sites great, with a nice view.

I could not believe how much stuff we had to take. Even with stuff loaded on my roof-rack (which Brad said I'd never use when I got the car), a bike rack on the back and two seats taken out of my van, we barely had room for the kids.


Part of what made this whole thing so enjoyable is that Dan and Kris camp quite a bit and have all the good stuff you need to make it even better. They had a cooking fly, a screened in eating area, shelves, dutch overs, stoves, a grittle and everything else you can think of. I bow to my brother's mastering grilling skills. He was able to cook the 6 racks of rips you see over an open fire and have them turn out to be some of the best I've ever had.

The camp had all sorts of activities, including outdoor movies, bike parades and ice cream socials. The camp hosts would ride around in these golf carts, with these creepy guys dressed in animal suits, telling you what the next activity was.

We had great weather on Friday and Saturday, but Saturday night we had a wind storm that I thought was going to cause our tent to take off. I didn't sleep a wink as I woke up every 20 minutes to see if the tent had fallen over. Sunday was rainy, so we hung out in the dining tent as the kids sung songs. Sounds cheesy, but it was great. In the afternoon we went over to COSI science center to play, then to Tony Packo's (made famous by MASH and Klinger) and finished it off by seeing the movie RV. 16 of us went to RV in a pretty empty theater, and we laughed until we hurt.

We headed home on Monday morning, all of us having had a blast. One of the best parts about it for me was hanging out with my older brother Dan. Dan and I had a lot of time to hang out just he and I, which we don't often get.

Dan's brother-in-law Bob and his VERY pregnant wife Amy were there also. Bob is a very large man, about 6'5". This picture of Bob wearing Matthew's baseball cap deserves a caption. Any suggetions?


You can see more of the pictures in the Kurt Family Photo Gallery.