Sunday, August 30, 2009

Camping - the Boring Pastime

Not too long ago, the Northern Clan decided to go on another camping trip. This would be our second camping trip of the year - the first being a trip to Quechee Gorge. Our destination on this trip was Crown Point State Park in New York. We'll soon find that this is a poor decision...
Here Levi "helps" Northern Daddy with the starting of the camp fire. There's a really long story about setting up the tents and how funky they looked (ever seen a tent lean really far to one side? - imagine a canvas Leaning Tower of Pisa. That's what we had going.) and Mommy going off in search of fire wood and being gone so long that NB/T and Daddy were just about to start begging for scraps of food from other campers - but that story is really long and contains some questionable language (who knew that Mommy knew words like that?!), so we'll just focus on the fire for now, okay?!Of course we got it lit!

Breakfast in the morning was supposed to be some nicely grilled sausage biscuits. You might notice that the sausages are tiny! (They looked larger in the picture on the box!) Regardless of the size, it was a grand breakfast: pretty much anything is going to taste good after a night spent being chased around an inflatable mattress by a toddler who is attempting to kick you in the head as many times as possible. (Not to worry- Northern Daddy has the plan in place: Levi is going to sleep in his very own tent next time!)

Hi! I'm Northern Baby/Toddler! I slept in that tent! I'm one! I love camping! Need me to poop on anything?! Look - a stick!

Our humble campsite. Just beyond those trees is Lake Champlain. To the right - nothing. To the left - nothing. (This theme will be continued.)

Killing time looking for something to do...


There are some cool ruins of the French and British forts....this would be the British one (evidenced by the flag)

Say cheese! No-wait! Say, pile of rocks! That's more like it!

The coolest thing for miles - a lighthouse built in honor of Samuel Champlain. (He "found" the lake, so he got to name it. Wonder what the natives thought of that one? I guess it never changes - the guy holding the gun makes the rules!)
We went to the top of the lighthouse - Northern Daddy got to carry NB/T's heavy butt up the stairs. Didn't stay at the top too long because Daddy had a wicked case of vertigo up there.

After touring the Crown Point historic site and checking out the lighthouse and steamship pier, we drove north for a bit - nothing to do. We drove east for a bit - nothing but farmland. We drove south a bit - found a cremee stand and had some ice cream - but nothing else to do. Came back to camp and NB/T found this to do:

Since NB/T was hogging all the spare shoes, and Northern Mommy and Northern Daddy were bored to death, the Northern Clan bailed on camping. First time we've ever bailed - we've made it through heat and rain and bugs, but we couldn't beat the brand of boredom this place served up - so we headed home half way through our stay. (It's quite amazing how fast a camp can be packed up if you're trying!)
The moral of our little story is that Crown Point is a day trip. Two hours ought to cover everything. Any longer and you're testing your sanity.
(The other lesson is to always camp with friends - they keep things interesting!)
(Hey Jakoby - we're saving some banana bread to grill on our next camping trip - you okay with fuzzy green banana bread?!)

2 comments:

Kevin said...

Pre-Children, we went on a similar camping trip to Lake George with 3 other couples. Did some hiking and local site seeing. However, we had planned to stay an extra two days. The day our friends left we went to a natural stone bridge and cave location and I don't remember what else. The next day we saw the same lighthouse as you and also saw a fort (Ticonderoga). Upon getting back to the campsite, we decided we didn't want to stare at each other all evening and could not think of anything to do the next day so we just packed up and left. Our only time leaving early. There must be something about that region.

Becky said...

I agree camping without friends is quite boring. Freeze the bread we'll grill it up next summer (unless you want to go camping this month???)