Traditionally, we have always went for family camping during memorial weekend and this time was no different. Although in hindsight maybe a beach trip would have been a better choice than camping cuz how it had rained almost every evening.
So, this time knowing the weather ahead of time I decided to spend extra on getting a canopy. And boy, I am so glad I did. It meant we were able to stand in shade, keep our food, silverware dry, cook in shade and made the wife happy....=)
We arrived around 6.30ish that evening at the Table Rock State Park. We had reserved campsite 37 with water and electric hookup. We really lucked out on that site. As we were driving thru the sites to get to ours, wife was groaning about how uneven, steep some of the sites seemed. Honestly, there's some slope but nothing too bad. When we arrived at our site, it hadn't started raining yet. So, both wife and I got to work taking advantage of that. I jumped to setup the small tent first so we can put the kids in there while wife kept them busy in the car. After the small one was setup, put the kids in the tent and then wife and I started setting up the canopy. Once those two were done, we started on the big tent primarily the one for sleeping and everything for next three nights.
By the time, we started on the big tent it started raining on us. In a rush and with some confusion, we were able to get it setup albeit some mistakes as clear on the pic above. In the middle of that night, I had to get up and readjust our sons' side of the tent cuz it was leaking. Next morning we realized water had got in on our daughters' side as well.
Where the park is located, there's no restaurant or grocery store within a short distance. There's one restaurant but it closes by about 8/9pm I believe. By the time, we were done setting up tents, it was almost 9pm. Kids were hungry, but more tired than anything. We had to drive 20 minutes into town to pickup pizza.
Next day, we took advantage of many of the activities the park has to offer. There's a play area, it is big and in a pretty decent shape. Because of the continuous rain, the playground appeared somewhat dirty but I believe it actually is kept well. Kids enjoyed burning off steam playing at the playground, watching ducks, visiting the nature center.
And it rained on us that night again. However, this night was a little more festive. I had downloaded few movies on our iPad from Netflix. So, this night during dinner wife and I setup the movie in our small tent and they were thrilled. They loved the whole atmosphere of eating their favorite dish while watching a movie inside a tent.
Next morning, I woke up quite early as usual. Realizing I won't be able to get back to sleep, I decided to take advantage of everyone else sleeping and go for a hike. I would've loved to do the Pinnacle Mountain Trail which takes you all the way to the summit, however I knew I wouldn't have enough time for that hike. It is 4.2 miles one way and very strenuous. Instead I decided to hike the simple Carrick Creek trail.
This trail is a simple 2 miles loop trail starting from the nature center. Earlier we had planned to hike this trail as a whole family. However, part of me wanted to assess what the trail holds for hiking with kids, since I didn't have our trusty Kelty child carrier with us. And boy I am glad I did the hike by myself. Without the child carries, it would've been quiet challenging with a 3 year old. Trying to get up on some parts of the trail, crossing the streams would've been a challenge. And that is always a recipe for disaster and make everyone miserable.
I had an awesome time exploring the trail by myself alone in the morning. Towards the end, I ran into two people on the trail. During this whole time, I was taken by the sound of nature, noise from the waterfalls, and on occasion cars and trucks driving by in distance.
