Our trips to Assateague Island are the ones I remember the most.  It’s one place that I want to take my family.  We would go every fall after school had started.  My mom would get my work for the week and I would work on it in the evenings.  When I got older (maybe around 4th grade) and there was too much school work, we would go right after school got out in June.

The best part about it was camping yards from the beach!  I remember playing on the beach which was less crowded  because it was later in the season (although I don’t remember it ever being very crowded).  One time we camped in a site that had a path to the playground.  We wrote down the number and my dad would request it every year after that.  My brother and I loved that we could run down the path to the playground.  It was all primitive camping – no water, no electric.  We would fill up with water on the way in and then at some point during the week, we would have to unhook to dump the gray & black tanks and get more water.

I remember going crabbing at the Ferry Landing.  I don’t know that we caught enough to feed the four of us very often, but when we did, mmmmmm!!  They were tasty!  I also remember crabbing on an island and the tide came up and the foot bridge that we crossed was underwater.  I think my mom and brother had gone back to the camper and I stayed with my dad to crab some more.  Anyway, I was pretty surprised that the bridge was gone.  I’m guessing he carried me back…I don’t remember that part.

I do remember the mosquitoes! One of the parks sprayed for mosquitoes and one didn’t.  They were bad either way and we always had bug spray and sunscreen on.

I remember that we had mice one year.  There must’ve been a nest in one of the storage compartments under the benches in the back.  Those benches converted to a bed that my parents used.  Poor Mom discovered the mice – one of them ran across her pillow in the night!  We set traps and I think we caught 5 total.

Feeding the seagulls was always fun too.  If we had stale bread (or probably some that wasn’t stale) or leftover pancakes, we fed it to the seagulls.  I remember the ponies and even though they were supposedly mean, I don’t remember them ever bothering us.

Something I didn’t know anything about as a kid was the cost.  When we first started going to Assateague Island it was $2.50/night for a primitive site (that’s all they had).  The last time we went (in 1988) it was $15/night for a primitive site.  Now at Assateague Island, the National Park is $20/night ($16 in the off season) for primitive sites and the State Park is $30/night (primitive) or $40/night  (electrical).

What’s your favorite childhood memory?

A couple years ago on our last camping trip of the season, we had a surprise visitor.  It had only been about 3 weeks since out last trip so a lot of stuff was still in the pop up – I had washed the bedding and towels and put it all back out there.  After I got everything loaded, I pulled the pillow top down on the floor and started shutting up the camper.  When we got to the campground, we set up with no problem and I went inside to put the beds up.  I picked up the pillow top so I could get to the smaller bed and something fell off it.  It was a BAT!!  I yelled for John, but he wasn’t going near it (bats aren’t his thing).  I carefully pushed it out with my foot (I think it was pretty startled to be so disturbed during the day).  It flopped out the door and crawled under the camper (I was afraid that it was going to roost under the beds and then end up back in the camper when we closed up – so far I haven’t seen it).  We then took the pillow top out and shook it off (I handed the end with the spider on it to John – spiders aren’t my thing).  There were no more surprises in it.  Whew!  I was too surprised to even think about getting my camera!

So, how did it get in there?  I have no idea.  I’m pretty sure it rode under the pillow top the whole way to the campground (there was a ummm, bat stain on the pillow top which we lysol’d really good!!), but how did it end up under it?  Maybe we left the door up too long last time we unloaded?  Maybe it rode in on the beds when we pushed them in?

What’s the strangest thing that’s ever ended up in your pop up?

I’ve posted about camping, but never really talked about our camper and why we chose a pop-up.  Growing up, my parents had a class C camper (you know, the kind with the bunk over the cab) and I have lots of happy camping memories.  Fast forward to when John & I had our first baby.  We had talked about getting a camper, but just weren’t sure.  I was sure I wanted a class C, but the cost seemed prohibitive (and this was before gas prices spiked!).  The other problem was we really didn’t have a place to park it at our house, so there would be the added cost of paying to park it somewhere else.  Plus, I really thought we would want to have a car with us rather than having to drive the RV everywhere (my parents never towed so if we went somewhere, they had to unhook everything, stow anything that was out, and then when we got back, hook everything back up again…seemed like a lot of work to me!).

At my parents recommendation, we went to the RV Show in Harrisburg, PA.  Wow!!  We saw all kinds of very expensive rvs!  There weren’t too many class C’s, but we did have fun looking at the million dollar class A’s.  We didn’t buy one and put it on the back burner until we moved to a place that had room for a camper.  Fast forward a few more years and we have three kids and a new-to-us house with lots of room to park a camper.  We started talking about buying a camper again.  John was really interested in a pop-up.  He had been camping in one a couple times and thought it would work for us.  I wasn’t at all sure!  However, the price was definitely better!  Also, we found out that our Explorer came with a tow package, so it was already to tow (I’m sure that was mentioned when we bought it, but at that point we were mostly interested in a 4WD vehicle).  The idea of getting to a campground and being able to set up once and then take the car where ever was very enticing!  I can remember my parents unhooking everything when we wanted to go to a museum, the grocery store, the laundry, anywhere really.  It seemed like a lot of work to me even as a kid.  So, off to the local Coleman dealer we went.  Actually, it was a used car place that also sold campers.  The model they had there was a Yuma which is not the smallest, but pretty close.  There are no tip outs, no bathroom/shower, a tiny kitchen, and enough beds to sleep 6-8 people (OK, probably 5, but we’ve had 7 in there with no problem).  I loved it!!  It somehow seemed perfect for our little family.  So, we ordered one.  They were made at a plant about an hour and a half from where we live (it has since closed).  I think the salesman was a little surprised that we bought one so fast.  He had no idea that this decision actually took about 6 years!!  We knew nothing about towing and asked a bunch of questions trying to figure out what we needed.  Finally we determined that we needed a ball mount and that it should only have a 2 inch drop.  Our next stop was at the auto parts store to pick up a ball mount.

About a week later we got a call that our pop up was in.  We got a quick lesson on setting up and tearing down and then they helped us get hitched up for the first time and we were on our way.

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We normally buy bottled water for camping.  Campground water tends to be very chlorinated and makes funny tasting coffee (definitely NOT a good thing!).  We decided to try out a water filter that goes on the faucet.  There are several models available. We bought a Brita 35214 Base Faucet Filtration System (affiliate link).  It’s a pretty basic model and not too expensive.  It allows for filtered water or unfiltered water and it’s easy to switch between the two.  Installation was very easy – unscrew the end of the faucet and  put the filter on and screw the Brita onto the faucet.  One thing you may want to do is install it on your kitchen faucet (or other faucet at home) and run water through it for 5 minutes (per the instructions).  Running water for 5 minutes in a camper leads to filling up the gray water tank much quicker than usual!

 The pros:

• it does make the water taste better
• doesn’t take up much space

The cons:

• makes a small sink seem smaller – filling the coffee pot with water was tricky and I think I would take it off to do dishes (can’t run hot water through it anyway)
• if the filter lasts the 3 months that it claims, it would last for at least a year, maybe 2 depending on how often you camp.

I’m pretty undecided about which is better.  We normally pack a cooler full of soda and water so even with the filter, we’d still be taking the cooler for soda.  However, I wouldn’t have to take gallon jugs of water for cooking.  What do you do?  Do you just use campground water?  Take bottled water?  Use a filter?  Something else?

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Please Note: Images and links in this post are affiliate links.

Wheel chocks are one of those things that we never got around to purchasing last year.  It’s probably a good thing that our campsites were fairly level!  However, we just recently went on our first week long trip and one of the things I felt we really needed were wheel chocks.   I found these at WalMart for under $6 a pair.  A similar pair can be purchased here.  We used them at each campsite along our trip (we stayed at four campgrounds in 9 nights!).  When we arrived at our last campsite, it was sloped.  How a paved site could slope two ways is beyond me, but we were very glad for the wheel chocks!  We put them by the wheels before we unhooked from our tow vehicle.  When it was time to leave, they were the next to last thing we packed away (the last were the leveling boards that were under the wheel).  I couldn’t budge the two chocks that were in the back.  Such a simple thing, so easy to use and so very important!

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