Fall Camping 2022!

Hello, friends! Any campers out there? Our family has always loved camping and several years ago we started a tradition of a yearly fall camping trip with a couple of other families. This year we couldn’t all get our schedules together for the same weekend, so we camped with just one family while the other family made arrangements with another group that they sometimes camp with (We missed you, Rivers!). This year was a little bittersweet as two of our girls are seniors in high school so we knew it might be their last fall camping trip together. Maybe not. Hopefully not! But we made the best of it just in case.

I’m starting with the nighttime pictures first because they are some of my favorites this year! Each family had their own camp space, but we kept one fire going and shared our meals and chat time together by the fire.

The younger kids have a tradition of telling ghost stories at the tent after dinner. Well, I use the term loosely–they were really just ridiculously silly stories, but they call them ghost stories. I think the photo below is my favorite of the whole trip! Can you see the moon through the trees?

They also discovered that shining the flashlight through smoke creates a colorful light show!

The evening temperatures dropped, and the lows dipped down to the upper 40s both nights! But we cozied up in our tents with lots of blankets and maybe a modern convenience or two, haha! I promise that heating pad was only for my aching back….right!

During the daytime our camp weather could not have been more perfectly fallish! The temperature was chilly in the morning and then warmed up to the mid 70s, perfect for biking, scootering, playing football, and taking walks.

Our tent was situated just above the edge of the river, so we had a beautiful view of the sparking water.

These three girls hung out in this hammock for I don’t know how long chatting and giggling and sharing secrets.

The whole trip I kept commenting on how everything just seemed so golden–the trees, the leaves, the sunshine. It’s so special to get to live in nature for a couple of days!

We also ate very well (Too well, maybe. It’s back to salads this week, ha!). For breakfast we cooked over the fire and that Conecuh sausage smelled sooo good.

The other dad made a donut run one morning–always a hit!

I’ve come a long way in my definition of camping. I used to believe it wasn’t camping if you were using any electricity and your head wasn’t making contact with the ground at night. I’m definitely not “glamping” yet, but let’s just say that aging brings with it some new allowances in my book. One of those is bringing the coffee maker. I know, I know. It’s not right. But hey, I spent a lot of years making my coffee in a tin pot over the fire, so I’ve done it and I never received any kind of medal, LOL!

And don’t tell anyone but we mamas might still be using the code “feed the cat” to run to my house for hot showers. There’s an advantage to living 15 minutes from the campground! It’s cheating, I know, but if you saw those bathhouses, you wouldn’t blame us! We were nice this year and let our girls in on our secret, so they got to “feed the cat” too–we needed extra hands since we adopted Floyd and have two cats this year.

Okay, back to meals! For lunches we kept it simple with sandwiches. And for dinner, we did hotdogs over the fire the first night and then soup and chili the second night. Later in the evenings we would enjoy special treats around the campfire such as popcorn or smores.

The last night we had tin can cakes! Have you made those? It’s so easy and such a fun activity for the kiddos! Just spray clean, empty tin cans with cooking spray and fill about 1/2 to 2/3rds with cake batter. I made a quick pumpkin cake batter with a cake mix, can of pumpkin, and two eggs. Put foil over each can and place in hot coals (not the flames!) for 5-8 minutes. Start checking for doneness at 5 minutes and then add minutes as needed.

Remove from the coals and let cool (see below).

You can eat them as they are or top with some canned icing or ice-cream. I took canned icing since we were camping.

Well, dessert is a great place to end this post! It was another memorable camping trip with dear friends, special memories, and God’s abundant blessings! If you haven’t camped, give it a try! It’s way cheaper than a vacation but still a fun getaway that you and your kids won’t forget.