A camping we will go

Hi ho the dairy-o a camping we will go.

Or should I say a camping we went.

On Saturday, we packed up Georgette and headed to Fox Ridge State Park just outside Charleston, IL where our oldest son lives.  He has autism and depending on how he’s doing on the day we visit him, he may or may not be in the mood for public appearances.  Having Georgette offers us the opportunity to bring him out to the campground for visits and we can either stay inside, hang around the campsite or take a walk.  It provides him some consistency when we visit and for him, that a good thing.   I’m happy to say that he was impressed with Georgette and enjoyed the visit.

This was also our first official camping trip with Georgette and thanks to Mother Nature, we broke her in good.

When we arrived, the sun was shining and the kids were more than happy to run off and explore the playground.  Within 30 minutes or so, the sun disappeared and the clouds began to role in.  Before long, our beautiful sunshiny day was replaced by a severe thunderstorm.  Buckets of rain fell from the sky, accompanied by plenty of thunder and lightning.  The kids sat inside coloring and eventually decided they wanted to watch a movie (and yes, I’m aware that there are those that don’t feel it’s camping if you are able to watch a movie at the campground).  I happen to have a couple of kids who are very afraid of storms, so a movie was a very nice distraction.

I’m also happy to report that Georgette handled the storm beautifully.  At one point the power at the campground went out, which meant Georgette lost power.  In that moment, I was so happy that we had a surge guard hard-wired in.  The power went out a second time this morning and everything is still working fine.

Although the weekend wasn’t a complete wash-out, the sun never came back out to see us.  That didn’t stop the kids from running out and playing when the rain wasn’t falling from the sky.  That quickly made some new friends at the campground, including this guy.

He (or maybe she), was an exciting discovery.

And apparently he liked Lili.

One camping trip under our belts and we learned a lot, which will only make our future camping trips that much better.

I also want to add that even if our son didn’t live in Charleston, we would definitely return to Fox Ridge for camping.  It is a beautiful state park, with a well-kept, clean campground.  The camping spots are level and surrounded by trees.  There are hiking trails (although we didn’t get a chance to check them out) and the roads are great for those who like to get in some bike riding.  In the center of the first loop of camping spots, is a playground.  There are little trails cut thru the trees and vegetation at each camping space that leads to the playground.  The kids really enjoyed

I look forward to our next trip to Fox Ridge and hopefully we’ll see more of Mr. Golden Sun.