Packing up for Winter :(

Hello friends,

This weekend marked the end of our first season camping...so first of all thanks for following along on our journey!  We've had a great time (and some challenges!) and packing up was definitely bittersweet! I'm not a big fan of endings but I also enjoy hibernating in the winter and the holidays so to everything its season I suppose...

Aside from packing up it was a rainy, chilly weekend so much of it looked like this...

Luckily we really like the living area in the new camper and it really does make it more comfortable when you want to be inside for a bit.  I did some reading and these two did a lot of napping and pretending (through closed eyes!) to watch one of the few TV channels we get which runs lots of old shows.  I did stop reading long enough to enjoy some Doogie Howser, M.D., hey what can I say... Doogie was my first crush...lol!





The packing up was fairly simple for us.  The campground we are at (shout out to Cedar Lake Campground in Dover, PA) has sign up sheets in their office and you can get on the list to have one of the local RV shops come around and winterize your camper for you... considering it is fairly inexpensive we decided to leave this task to someone else.  With that taken care of, we really just needed to make sure we cleared out anything that shouldn't stay in the RV all winter (food, books, bedding, toiletries), and secure all of our outdoor furniture and decorations.  While packing up I realized we didn't drink nearly enough wine this season as we had several bottles to take home... lol.  I forgot to take one of my bags that can nicely carry several bottles (with separators to prevent clinking and breaking) so I devised this little trick.  The socks are clean, I promise!

While Henry stayed at the campsite with the company who winterized for us, I was on Hank duty so that he would not annoy everyone while they were trying to work!  It was damp and not the most pleasant walking weather but we found lots of beauty tucked into the dreary day...

While we're talking about nature's beauty... the fall leaves were very pretty, and we had lots of time with them as we raked this weekend... and now you can't tell that we did... except when we move the cars.  We had cleared all the leaves and then re-parked our cars, and then the rain overnight dropped a whole new covering of them.  So this is just proof for ourselves that we did do the job once, though there will be plenty more to do next time we visit the campground!

So this is so long to camping weekends until at least late March, but it won't be goodbye from the blog until then :-)  I have a few post ideas tucked away from this season, and I also plan to try lots of camping friendly recipes over the winter (I did bring the instant pot home with me!) and of course, there's always books to share!  I'd also like to bring just a little of the magic of camping to everyday life, take deep breaths and slow everything down.  I'll share that journey here over the winter as we dream of camping again in the spring.  Here is one last picture of the campsite, all closed up.  So long camper and campground... we will be stopping in the check on you here and there...until warmer weather comes back to us.

What we're reading:

   

I finished Turtles All The Way Down by John Green.  It was fantastic, please do yourself a favor and go read it!  I know he's my favorite, but it's because he's awesome.  Camping husband is still reading it so when he is done I will share his review as well.  

I also finished Wonder by R.J. Palacio over the weekend and not to be "punny" but it was really a wonderful read.  It has been made into a movie that comes out very soon and I wanted to read it before seeing it in theaters (the camping kiddos really want to see it and also enjoyed the book).  The main character is a 5th grader, and the book is written for that age group but it's a beautiful read no matter how old you are.

Happy Reading -- Hope everyone has a fantastic week!

Peace, Love, and Paw Prints, 

Camping Librarian