Okay, so yeah, it took me about a year to write about this but I’m so excited to share it with you. I’ve never been afraid to do things by myself, but more often than not, I just don’t always do them. I decided it was time to change all of that. I had been dating someone who had a big camper that we took across the country a few times but we weren’t together anymore. I didn’t want to quit our camping adventures just because of that though so I decided I wouldn’t. I had made a plan with my best friend years ago to go see the eclipse by her in Ohio about five years ago so decided then and there that we were going. Here’s some entertaining details about our trip to see the eclipse.

To prep – I actually bought our camping stuff as our Christmas gifts the year before. The kids and I headed out to look at things in the stores to decide what we wanted to use. Then I wrapped it all up for Christmas. The tent was a gift from a client of mine who was getting rid of it. We picked the dates we were leaving and couldn’t wait to get started. I cooked our meals ahead of time and froze them flat in gallon size ziplock bags to be heated up in our cast iron pan over the fire. Have you heard of the Roadtrippers app? It’s a fantastic tool for road trips so I spent months adding things to our route to decide if we would do along the way.

We rented a car and let me tell you – that was interesting. It was so new and fancy and I had no clue how to put it in drive…then reverse and park. It was hilarious! After getting acquainted with the features, we loaded up and then left in the morning. While I had checked the weather for where we were headed, I didn’t check where we were at. Turns out we left in a blizzard, so that was an adventure. Now, I live in Minnesota so driving in snow is no big deal for me but it was a rough start to the trip. It took 8.5 hours to get to Madison, Wisconsin and we spent hours in park on the interstate which was not my idea of fun. When we were moving, it was like 35 mph. By the time we got to Madison, I had to call it quits for the night, my body hurt from driving in the weather. We were suppose to make it to Indiana the first day which was a lot of driving but I knew we could do it…until then. If we made it out of the snow, it was tornado weather so we got a hotel. There was nothing to do because everything we planned was for being outside but the hotel had a pool and we had no swimsuits. So, we swam in our clothes, ha! Adapt and have fun. Also…all of that food to cook over the fire and all we had was a microwave. We had microwaved hot dogs for dinner. Not my favorite meal ever but entertaining anyways.

We left in the morning on our way to Indiana. It rained…all day. We finally got to the campground and it quit raining just long enough to set up the tent. It got down to 40 that night and rained and snowed. I’m glad we bought the sleeping gear we did because we didn’t have a heater and we stayed plenty warm in our sleeping bags. Then had to pack up in a drizzle to get to Ohio. It rained almost all day again! It stopped for awhile right at a spot I had saved on our Roadtrippers app to hike so we got out of the car and hiked. It was really cool, caves and a waterfall and we had a blast. However, at some point…it started hailing on us because at this point, why wouldn’t it, ha! We hid in a cave for a bit until it stopped. What a fun adventure that ended up being, we had a blast! Then we hit the road again to get to Hocking Hills.

We set up the tent…in the rain, shocking, right?! But it stopped for a bit and we got about 20 minutes of exploring in and had dinner over the fire. We had a visitor that night, a raccoon was climbing a tree near our campsite. The next day the sun was finally shining and I think it stayed dry the rest of the trip. I have been looking forward to hiking in Hocking Hills for years and couldn’t wait! It’s gorgeous and we spent two days hiking and exploring and having so much fun!

Then we left and went to my best friend’s house for a few days to hang out, wash some clothes and see the eclipse. We actually got to watch the eclipse from an airfield which in itself was a pretty cool experience. We also visited the Air Force museum which was fun.

Then we didn’t have a plan for the drive home but decided to head back to Turkey Run State Park because that was our plan on the way but it didn’t work out. I’m so glad we did. That trail 3 hike….was incredible! It was up a creek and every kids dream hike to scramble up rocks, climb through the creek, walk on logs, so much fun!!!

As we laid down for bed that night I started researching where to stop on our last night before going home. I decided on Maquoketa Caves in Iowa and WOW! It was really an incredible place. We were a little early so all of the caves weren’t open yet because the bats were still hibernating so we are actually going back this summer. It is gorgeous! The perfect way to end our trip.

Before this trip, I had tent camped with my kids one night ever. I had tent camped about a week before I had kids, otherwise I had no real tent camping experience. Turns out, it didn’t matter. We had the best time. We adapted to the things that didn’t go as planned with no complaining and they keep saying how they cannot wait to go again.

This year’s big trip is supposed to be going out to Virginia and then coming home up around the great lakes on the Canada side but I’m not sure we will be able to make that work so we may do a lot more local camping this year. I’d love to hear some of your fun camping stories so please – share them in the comments below!