Family Camping

We're back. We went on our 5th annual summer vacation to Hickory Hill Family Camping Resort in Bath, NY. We had a wonderful two weeks. We didn't do all of the things we normally do, well some of us didn't. For some people it's enough to just hang around the campground, by our trailer of by the pool, and a lot of the time that's what we did. But we always make some day trips. We might just take a drive through the beautiful countryside around the Finger Lakes and the hills of the Alleghany Plateau but we also make some trips to various destinations.

We ended up at the Arnot Mall one day. We thought about seeing a movie there but we couldn't agree on which one to see so we skipped it and just wandered around the mall and did a bit of shopping.

Some of us went to the Windmill Farm and Craft Market.

We went to Watkins Glen State Park as we do every year and this year we made it all the way up the gorge and back.

We went, for the first time, to the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport. I never realized what a huge part of aviation history this guy and this village are.

Some of the kids went with the in-laws to the Corning Museum of Glass. We've done it a couple of times over the years but skipped it this year.

We always go on a wine tour and tasting and this year we went to the Widmer Winery. They are, for some years now, owners of the Manischewitz brand and produce all of that brand of Kosher wine. We saw the facility and met one of the rabbis who oversees that production.

At the campground the kids usually went to the craft time each morning. They do themes each week and our first week there was "Death by Chocolate" week. The second week was racing week since NASCAR was coming to nearby Watkins Glenn.

During the Chocolate week nearly all of the crafts were edible. On one day they had a chocolate slip- and-slide where they laid a tarp down on the grass, sprayed some water on it, then dumped a bunch of chocolate pudding on it. Two of my kids braved the mess as did my sister-in-law. They had a candy bar bingo night where the price of a card was one candy bar and all of the prizes were candy bars. One of my daughters won twice, totaling 8 candy bars.

As we were leaving we booked our two weeks on the same site for next year. Yesterday after my wife finished cleaning the trailer so that I could close it up she said she could easily camp out in there longer. We have such a great time. The kids love it. We love it. Our 9-year-old boy says he likes sleeping in the trailer because we're all so close together. That's sweet. It's a shame we don't use it more but it's hard to take the time off. We've considered going somewhere close to town for a weekend, close enough that I could be in church on Sunday morning for worship and then head back again afterward but we never get that together. But even if the trailer only gets used for 2 weeks out of the year I think it's worth it. I'm looking forward to next year already.