Prior to this trip, we’ve typically camped at state parks in Virginia and the surrounding area. State parks are destinations unto themselves; they have hiking trails, often mountains and/or lakes, or some natural feature that warranted the creation of the state park. The campgrounds just add to the experience and allow visitors to stay a night or more in the park. When we camp in Virginia’s amazing wealth of state parks, we often never leave the park for the duration of our trip. And as other campers are in the same boat, the kids frequently make friends at the campground. It’s like a freshman year college dorm – a bunch of kids show up not knowing anyone else and within a day they are fast friends. It’s not unusual to see a roaming pack of kids biking around the campground and spending time at each others’ campfires.

On this trip we’ve stayed at quite a few private campgrounds and only one state park. Rather than seeking out specific state or national parks we’ve been focusing on destinations and then finding a convenient campground with showers and (ideally) hookups. State and national parks also tend to have fewer amenities like water and electric hookups, hot showers, etc., and knowing that we’d be on the road for 6 plus weeks I wanted to prioritize camping comfort. One unexpected aspect of staying in private campgrounds is that friends are hard to come by. Most of the campers use the campground as a home base and then leave to go explore the surrounding area. The campground can feel almost empty during the day. There also seem to be more retirees and couples camping and fewer kids. Both kids have been really missing the social aspect of camping so when an SUV with 2 kids around Penelope’s ago showed up a few days ago, Penelope stalked them. Within a few minutes she had them in the pool with her and proceed to spend the rest of the night playing nonstop.

Phineas and I spent the next day doing laundry and running errands while Jake stayed back at camp with Penelope so she could keep playing with her new friends. They had an EPIC day riding pool floats down the river behind the campsites, playing in the pool, playing card games and just being kids outside. Sadly Jake didn’t take any photos, but if/when the other mom texts me some I’ll add them to the blog. EDIT: adding some photos.

For our last full day in New Hampshire, we decided to head to Loon Mountain Resort, a ski resort that offers 4 season activities. In summer, they monetize their ski lift as a scenic gondola ride to the summit of loon peak. It was a really fun day. Phineas rode the 20 minute round trip gondola up and down the mountain several times while Jake and Penelope explored the glacial caves at the summit. Jake said the glacial caves were amazing but very strenuous to explore. He likened crawling through the caves to some form of extreme yoga. They also have a summer activity area at the base of the mountain with a zip line and climbing walls. After we were done exploring the summit, Jake and Penelope tried the zip line and Penelope made it to the very top of the climbing wall. When we got back to camp we spent a last evening hanging out around the campfire with our new friends, then started to pack up for our next stop, Burlington, VT.