Camping In Pawtuckaway

Last weekend we met Chris and his family all the way over in Nottingham at Pawtuckaway State Park for a night of camping and a weekend of fun. They had never been camping before and the place they wanted to try it for a night happened to be right up the road from us, so it was a much different experience than our usual long drives and packing everything but the kitchen sink. We packed what we needed for a night, which was surprisingly still a lot, and made the 25 minute drive over there to set up everything Saturday after lunch. Once that was set we got to relax and have fun. The campground was just a bit rowdier than most that we go to but nothing terrible. After the fireworks died out from the houses along the opposite lake shore the only real noise was the loons calling and the fires crackling.

With all it had to do Pawtuckaway was a surprisingly nice little local park for a quick day or weekend trip. It has a great sandy beach with cool clear water, which we spent a lot of time in, and canoe rentals that we took advantage of for an picnic lunch and site-seeing tour. EMS was also having a free demo weekend with kayaks and stand up paddle boards, aka SUP's. The kids, especially Tyler, had fun with the kayaks and almost everyone else tried out the SUP's too, which were interesting and fun for a bit but seemed like they could get pretty boring after a while. I'd definitely choose a kayak over them if I had to buy one but have always seen people out in the ocean on one and wanted to try one. Now I can say I have at least even if it wasn't my favorite thing in the world. Mix in some drinks, a campfire and some s'mores and you wind up with a quick and easy getaway weekend, if you like camping that is. My parents even joined us for everything but the overnight part, although they stayed for a big chunk of that too so really they only missed out on about 8 hours of sleeping in a tent, which was probably fine with them.

The only thing we didn't squeeze in that they wanted to do was a hike but it was so hot and nice out we decided to stay near the water most of the time. Jen, Brooke and I have done it before and we can all go do that one some other time when they visit. It's probably a very nice little hike in the fall I'd guess, as the views aren't overwhelming but with some foliage it'd be a pretty nice hike. Hopefully they liked their trial run of camping enough that we can go back or go somewhere else sometime. For now the pictures are here from this trip along with a couple from the 4th. Hope you enjoy them!