Staying Out of the Campgrounds on Memorial Day

We have a real aversion to camping in crowded campgrounds on busy holiday weekends. It's not that we're antisocial, it's just that we don't care for all the crazy people that come out for one or two weekends a year and don't know how to behave themselves in a campground! 

You know the ones, cranking loud music and singing at the top of their lungs? We had them last year. Or the ones that slam their car doors and their RV compartment doors at 6:00 a.m. on their way out to go fishing. Or the ones where their dogs bark incessantly for hours on end while they go off sightseeing. The ones that park all over the campground lot lines and intrude into your campsite. Of course they're the ones that walk right through your campsite to get somewhere they want to go. I could go on and on and on. We all know the types. It seems that they come out once or twice a year and make the most of a 3-day weekend for Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day. So that's when we don't go to the campgrounds!!!

We were going to stay home, but our oldest daughter invited us to come up to their cabin and park our motorhome in the yard. It's nice and quiet up in the Northwoods of Wisconsin far away from any town, or any campground for that matter.

We actually drove on up there before they even arrived, and got parked into our "spot" complete with a 30 amp plug-in at an outdoor power post. Perfect!

We set up some lawn chairs and put out our awning and smaller camping mat. The weather report was looking grim, and we were supposed to have a lot of rain move in later in the evening. But, in the meantime, we could enjoy some peace and quiet in the woods.

We even took a nice long afternoon nap! 

I had assembled some fun video clips with my new GoPro camera. After the weekend was done I put them all together and let the GoPro Quik program assemble them and put them into a short YouTube. Complete with music! 

So if you don't want to read the rest of my blog, here is our weekend in a nutshell on this cute little YouTube clip:

By the time the kids got up to the cabin, it was starting to rain. We all ended up inside and tossed some pizzas into the oven for dinner. There would be no outside campfire or grill cooking tonight.

Things are pretty comfortable inside the cabin, as you can see. They recently built it as a getaway from their busy lives in the big city.

The kids were busy playing cribbage with their mom, while the guys were solving all the problems in the world.

We left our dogs out in the motorhome during the pouring rain, but got in plenty of cuddles with their silly little pups, Biscuit and Ewok.

Late into the night, we dashed out to the motorhome in between downpours. It was a very relaxing night sleeping with the sound of rain on the motorhome roof. We slept well, and in the morning headed back into the cabin for coffee and breakfast.

Chelsea and Claire were putting together one of our family favorites. It's such an easy breakfast bake dish that can feed large groups of people by only using one big casserole dish.

Here is the recipe. We omit the half cup of milk. For some reason it takes a lot longer to bake it because it's runny with the milk in it.  The kids are not crazy about the onions or the scallions in it, so we omitted them this time. Other times, if we are making two pans, one for the adults and one for the kids, then we add them. We have also added things like little pieces of mushrooms or green peppers or bacon bits.

Tah dahhhhhh! All done, and easily served up portions by Chef Chelsea.

It had stopped raining and was going to be a beautiful day! Clayton got out the lawn mower and started trimming up around the cabin. Can you imagine his utter surprise when he found THIS laying low in the tall grass????

It was so tiny, and laid there so lifeless, that we checked from a distance to make sure it was actually breathing by watching it's sides slowly move in and out. We knew Mama must be close by, so we left it alone and stayed far away from that area. We also enclosed their dogs back in the cabin and put ours back in the motorhome. That way Mama would not be intimidated about coming back for her baby.

I suppose, all week long, it was a nice quiet place to hide with a baby in the tall grass. But suddenly all these vehicles come and make noise and dogs running around! She must have dashed into the woods in the morning and left the baby behind and told it to not move or make a sound. 

About an hour later we saw a flash of brown against the trees so we knew she was nearby.  Sometime, when we weren't looking, she must have called to the baby and it quickly skedaddled over to her side. Off into the woods to safety. 

While the guys were cutting lawn, I put together a cute little craft idea for Claire. My sister Linda, who is a librarian, sends me all of these great ideas. We found a piece of cardboard and I got out a marker and a scissors. This is what she started with:

She wandered around through the meadow and found enough little flowers to adequately decorate her beautiful "Dandy-Lion".

The guys took care of cutting down a dead tree, and the kids all pitched in to help haul firewood and branches. The price you got to pay for having a cabin is spending Saturday morning doing maintenance! 

By afternoon, the day had turned absolutely glorious. It was in the low 70s with a slight breeze. Just enough to keep the mosquitoes and gnats away.  The games came out on the picnic table and Chelsea drew up elimination brackets for tournaments for each game we were playing. Connect Four, Domino's, cribbage etc.  Everyone got involved and took their turns on the playoff bracket. Erin found this really nice large wooden Connect Four game at Aldi's last week.

Chelsea, who would like to be a veterinarian one day, took care of brushing out both of our dogs. They had recently had a bath that helped loosen up their winter undercoats. There was plenty of fuzz flying around for birds to take and put into their nests.

Grandson Clayton was manning the campfire. With all of the excess tree branches that came down during the day, he had plenty to keep the fire going into the evening.

By nightfall, Waylen had put up their new big projector screen and set up for a family movie. We took out all of our chaise recliner lounge chairs and blankets and snuggled up for the evening.  Movie Night! 

Erin popped popcorn and we watched the classic Jurassic Park. The mosquitoes weren't too bad, and the temperatures dipped down into the '50s. We didn't care, we were pretty snuggly warm...

The next morning, the kids couldn't wait to haul out more crafts and games. It was maybe going to rain later on in the day, so we figured we better get all of our outside fun in while we could.

Painting on rocks and acorns was the highlight of this day. Our daughter Heather came up with granddaughter Whitney to spend the day. Jameson and Jesse both had to work so it was a "Girls Road Trip" to come up to the cabin!

Heather was added into the brackets and teamed up with the advice of Whitney to win against the other grown ups. They beat me!

The two silly little girls decided that they wanted to go for four wheeler rides! Of course, they are just pretending here. They do not drive.

Look at those smiles!!!

Clayton attached a little wagon to take them around at a slow speed on the trails. They have 10 acres of beautiful land to wander around on.

Throwback memory to a time when our kids were little, and here is Erin on the back of the four wheeler with her Uncle Butch, and Heather is in the wagon along with her little cousins Matthew, Darren and Christopher... Circa early 1990's

Fun runs in the family---

By evening, the heavy rains managed to return. It was an inside cooking evening again. This time it was Clayton's turn! 

His absolute favorite meal to cook whenever he comes to our house is spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread sticks. He went to work as our MasterChef for the evening.

Soon he had our meal fully prepared, including breadsticks fresh out of the oven.  He was pretty proud of the fact that he did the entire meal and it all came out perfect.

We also kept granddaughter Whitney for an overnight at the cabin. Lots of giggly girls and silly games were played. We did play some cribbage games which are really good for the children's math skills. 

Again, we had a rainy night in the camper. But we didn't mind. We were safe and warm and dry. I felt bad for anybody who was trying to stay in a tent in a campground.

The next morning, it was Chelsea's turn to serve us a little treat. Recently she had found this cute little machine at the Dollar General store. Using one of the recipes out of the book, she was able to make us all little mini donuts to go with our coffee.

It's called the Babycakes machine. She said there were also machines for making ice cream cones and French toast sticks and a couple other things all in the same brand or series.

We decided to skip driving all the way to the nearest town to watch the Memorial Day celebrations. Instead we stayed back at the cabin and talked about family members in the past who had served. 

There were more storms due to come in later that day so it was time to pack things up and head on back home. We stole a couple grandkids to ride along with us. It made more room in their vehicle with all of their extra gear.

Clayton rode up front in the co-pilot seat and made sure Grandpa had all the directions on how to get back home. He jibber-jabbered the entire way!!

Soon we were back home, unloaded, and another holiday weekend was in the books.

Stay tuned for my next blog, which is going to be a little handy hint on cleaning RV awnings!