Camping in North Carolina

What a gorgeous weekend the Lord gave us! We had been planning for months to use this long weekend to travel to North Carolina to camp at Falls Lake Campground near Butner, NC where Kimberly's parents live. We camped here three times before, twice while Carl was in Kuwait and Kimberly was living in Butner. It is a beautiful, but no frills, campground. No campstore or concessions but a large lake and wooded campsites, just our style. The kids loved camping there because we had always found a site on the lake with access to a tiny beach where they could swim right from our campsite. Twice we camped next to a man, named John King, whom the kids became good friends with. (He was almost completely deaf, so he had no problem camping next to a family with several boisterous boys!) The boys were disappointed that he wasn't there this time--once he had his teenaged grandson with him and the boys had a great time wrestling in the water with him.

We had a rough start this time. We left work at about 11:00 a.m. thinking we would be early enough that we would miss traffic. But alas, traffic was slow around Dumfries so we decided to stop and eat at the Cracker Barrel, hoping things would be moving faster when we got back on I-95. It was still slow but our biggest slow down was that we goofed when we got to Richmond. Instead of staying on I-95 so that we could pick up I-85 on the south side of Richmond, we went around 295 and missed I-85. Finally, as we crossed into North Carolina, I pulled out the map and sure enough we should have picked up I-85 two hours back! Ahhhhh! By this time it is 6:00 p.m and we had thought we would be setting up camp by this time. Carl had gotten off work early and had arrived at the campsite and been set up since 5:00 p.m.(with the help of five kids ages 3-9 years!) We consulted the map and found a road that took us across to I-85. It was getting close to 8:00 p.m. by the time we approached our exit and we were very nervous. Not only were we now going to have to set up our pop-up for the first time in the dark, but in North Carolina state parks they close the gate at 8:00 p.m., no exceptions, and no one can get in or out. Carl went to the Ranger Station to explain our problem and was told that if we didn't arrive by 8:00 p.m. we would have to park outside and walk in--and the fact that we had a camper was a shame, wasn't it? Well, we kept calling Carl to let him know where we were and finally arrived at the campground at 8:07 to find Carl waiting with the kids in his van and the gate open! Happily, the camper went up easily with Carl's help. We started a fire and roasted hot dogs and then fell into bed sometime after 10:00 p.m.

The rest of the weekend was wonderful. We love cooking and eating outside and I always take something to cook in my iron Dutch oven. This time I had taken a roasting chicken and looked forward to roasting that on Saturday night. However, when I went to retrieve it from out camping tote, it was missing. Bill was sure it had been packed but we remembered later that we had carried it home from our last camping trip with leftover peach cobbler still inside and had cleaned it out at home. It apparently then had not been packed with all our camping equipment. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs over the open fire that night instead. We still enjoyed cooking pancakes and bacon over the fire--my favorite way to cook when we are camping! Carl made breakfast on Saturday morning using his campstove--delicious eggs and bacon and toast.


It was warm enough for the kids to swim in the lake (not however, warm enough for the adults to do the same!) They had a ball splashing and swimming.

Carl and I took Esther and went out Saturday morning to find the Super Wal-Mart and picked up the rest of the groceries we needed for the weekend and Dad-Dad and the boys had a great time looking through Alex's survival book and then making a lean-to shelter with a tarp and some sticks. They were so excited to show that off to us when we returned and ate their lunch in its shade. They insisted they would sleep there that night. Alex did fall asleep there but Carl moved him to the tent when we all went to bed.
Of course, camping (or any outdoor activity) means finding wildlife and catching it, if possible. The boys caught a little skink and Esther, being a true Trautman woman, found a snake--and caught it. She was so excited about it and the fact that it was small and a beautiful green color (it was a green vine snake) made it all the more attractive as she posed with it in her hair.


On our other trips to this campground we had found some very interesting mushrooms and this trip was no different. Just walking around the campground loop we found many. Dad-Dad encouraged the kids to name them. We found a "fried egg", "popcorn kernel" and a "golf ball on a tee" (this one named by Carl). Isn't it the coolest mushroom?


Kimberly stayed home with little Samuel but joined us for the day after church on Sunday. We had a great time visiting with her and seeing little Samuel taking a few steps. Carl and Dad went out in the evening and brought back pizzas and subs for dinner (not our normal camping routine--but Bill was trying to make up for the chicken fiasco--and at least Carl and Kimberly had a chicken to take home for Monday's dinner!) Dirty, tired and happy kids were packed into the vehicles and headed home at about 7:00 p.m. for showers and bed. And NiNi and Dad-Dad relaxed by the fire and enjoyed the quiet (the entire loop had been filled with families--and they all packed up and left Sunday afternoon, leaving us totally alone on the lake). We took one last walk around the camp loop before it got totally dark. There was a beautiful full moon shining on the lake, which I tried to capture but only got a fraction of its beauty.


And then we retreated to our little pop-up and enjoyed one last night sleeping snuggled under covers with the screens open, enjoying the night breezes and sounds. It was glorious waking up each morning and the first thing you saw was the sun coming up over the lake! I loved every minute of our trip (well maybe not the minute when I discovered I had no way to cook a chicken!). We got up and packed up the next morning and had an uneventful trip home, arriving at our exit at about 6:00 p.m. and decided to call Ryan and have him meet us for dinner at Cracker Barrel. What a nice ending to a perfect weekend.