How I Fell In Love With Camping

I live in a house full of boys.  They enjoy outdoor things like fishing, hiking, kayaking, and such.  I’m more of a lie on the beach/sit on the porch/luxury resort kinda girl. When it came to planning adventures, I’m usually outnumbered.  About 5 years ago, I decided to indulge the boys and plan a lake trip.  I would concede to going to a campground, but I was NOT willing to sleep in a tent.  I didn’t want to do it in the Army when I had to, so I sure wasn’t going to pay someone to sleep in a tent.  I found a happy compromise and rented a lakeside cottage at Keen Lake, which is about an hour north of our house in Waymart, PA.  I was expecting it to be similar to a trip to the Jersey Shore, so I packed up what felt like our whole house and we headed out for a new adventure.

Once we arrived, we were immediately exposed to the friendly nature of campers.  We checked in and went to check out our new home for the next 4 days.  The “Laurel” cottage was a super cozy, 2 bedroom cottage with a wood stove in the living room and a spacious deck out front.  When you stepped off the deck, it was maybe 20 steps to the lake, with a perfect rock to sit on and take the surrounding beauty in.

The campground offered so many amenities like paddle boating, kayaking, fishing, a pool, a beach, and a swimming dock.  They also had fun activities like rock painting, an arcade, water gun battles, movies at the barn, and adult-only pool hours (yay for no splashing and screaming).  This place was as fun as going down the shore, but it had a way more relaxing, friendly vibe. No one was in a rush.  Everyone said hello to each other.  We kept thinking, “These people are SO nice!”  

We walked around the campground many times, just waving at folks, chatting and making small talk.  We befriended a family from New York in the cottage next to us.  They loaned our kids their kayaks.  We sat by the fire and talked with them about military history, the wineries on Long Island (which are still on my to-do list, by the way).  We ended up pooling resources and having a big, combined family dinner on their deck.  We were certainly enjoying this trip and were already planning to do it again.  We were also amazed at some of the RVs and trailers that we saw at the campground.  Many of them were downright luxurious!

We returned to Keen Lake several times after that first trip.  We loved the cottages there, especially last year when we rented Hermit Island, a lone cottage on a 4-acre island in the middle of Keen Lake. On each trip, we fell more in love with lake life and the camping lifestyle.  We dreamed of buying a camper and a piece of lakefront property to park it on.  Maybe after the kids leave home, we thought.  Or maybe that will be our retirement plan.  We weren’t sure, but somehow, we’d figure out a way to live this camping lifestyle because we had found “our people.”  We also had a few friends who had campers, which made it seem more attainable to us and gave us the opportunity to check out their setups.  The wheels were turning.

Fast forward to mid-summer 2020.  By this point in “the year of COVID,” I’d been cooped up at home with my kids for almost 4 months.  Now I love my kids, but seeing only them, my husband, and the 4 walls of my house was beginning to make me lose my mind.  Being that my husband is an essential county employee, at least he was going to work every day and talking to other people.  My outings consisted of curbside pick up at Shop-Rite, Target or our local specialty grocer.  I needed to getaway.  I needed a change of scenery, but where could we go?  Nothing was really open and we were not too thrilled with the idea of staying in a hotel or rental property where you weren’t sure that things were clean and sanitized.  Then, it hit us!  Our neighbor across the street was selling his travel trailer.  Maybe now was the time to pull the trigger and see if we could make our camping dreams a reality.

Matt went across the street and took a look at the trailer.  He came back and said, “It’s too small.  We’d kill each other!”  My reply? “Well, let’s go look at bigger ones, then.”  It took about a week of nagging before we grabbed the kids and headed up to Pocono RV.  Donned in our masks, we looked at several different ones and finally went to find a salesperson inside to see if we could make it happen.  By the time we left, we had one particular travel trailer in mind and went home to mull it over.  We brought home our Keystone Bullet 2 weeks later, and a week after that, we were on our first camping trip.

We’ve gone out on 5 trips to date (I’m actually writing this from a campground right now) and have 2 more trips planned before we winterize.  Buying this travel trailer has given us the ability to move about relatively freely in this COVID world.  We know that our space is clean and safe and we are able to enjoy nature and each other’s company.  We’ve met some amazing people in our travels, and this is just the beginning.  It’s a wonderful gift that leaves us asking why we didn’t do this sooner.  After all, home is wherever you park it!