Bay City

October 5th through October 7th, 2007

Friday, October 5th - 85/58°, Partly Cloudy

    Being a Friday during the school year, Tara had to work and Tyler & Samantha had class. Drew and Jayden stayed home with me, although Jay went home with my parents after they came up to switch vehicles with us. Since their truck only seats five, we can’t take all of the kids this time. Hopefully next year we will have a truck so that we won’t always have to be borrowing theirs. We were hoping to get an early start on our drive north, so Tara picked up Tyler and Sam on her way home from work, while also picking up McDonalds for lunch.

    After we managed to finish loading the trailer and eating we headed out, finally getting on the road around 2:30pm. After a drama-free drive, we got to the campground around 3:30pm. Tara went in and registered while I circled around to fill up the fresh water tank in the camper. When we were both finished, we headed to our site - #144. Our site was directly behind the other two sites in our group (#5 & #6). Since we were unsure of how we were going to arrange everything, we got the camper on the site and waited to unhook. Jeff & Becky, and their kids, weren’t too far behind us and arrived shortly after we did. We figured out how we were all going to park, and then began the process of getting everything set up. We didn’t get a head start on decorating because I dragged our family out on a wild goose hunt while Jeff & Becky took their kids to buy some bales of straw and some pumpkins.

    Regarding the errands – I realized after about 30 minutes into our drive that I had forgotten my cameras. I cannot cope without the cameras on a trip like this, so I was determined to find a new one (I had been researching one, so I had a specific model in mind). Of course I couldn’t find it at any of the stores that we stopped at. After we drove around looking for a Best Buy (with no luck), we had had enough and decided to go back to get something to eat.

    Once we returned to the campsite we started cooking, tonight it was hot dogs and mac-n-cheese. Since it was already dark outside (working second shift you tend to not realize how early it gets dark out this time of year), we decided to eat inside. After dinner, Drew got his pajamas on and climbed into bed. Tyler and Sam also put their pajamas on, but they stayed awake for a while watching movies. I don’t think they finished one, as Sam passed out early on and Tyler didn’t last much longer. We moved Sam into the top bunk, and Tyler got the couch tonight. Tara & I hung out with Jeff, Becky, Mike, & Kris (who arrived while we were out running our pointless errands) by the fire talking for a while. Around midnight we headed inside to call it a night.

Saturday, October 6th - 88/65°, Sunny

    We did pretty well this morning, sleeping in until around 8:30am today. The kids saw some of the other kids outside, so they were raring to go as well. We managed to keep them inside long enough to eat some breakfast before cutting them loose to play. Tara and I took turns going to the bathhouse to shower while the other one stayed behind to watch the kids and work on decorations. Once we had both finished getting cleaned up, Tara took off to the store to pick up a few supplies (we probably would have determined what we needed last night if I hadn’t drug us out early). I stayed behind to take care of the kids.

    Dad & Mom had talked about going on a color drive to see the trees today, so we (and by we, I mean me) convinced them to bring my cameras with them on their way. They got to the campground shortly after Tara got back. They joined us for lunch (well, Mom didn’t actually eat) before heading out. After we ate, we went to the host site to decorate pumpkins and decorate cookies. We were a little late getting there (although we were well within the allotted time frame for the event), and all of the pumpkins were gone, along with the cookies. Thankfully, Becky had pulled some pumpkins aside for us when she got there, so the kids did manage to at least participate in that part of the event.

    When the kids finished painting, we walked back to the campsite to relax for a while. The guys hung around listening to the Michigan football game, while the girls sat around talking. There were also a couple of games of Ladder Golf played. The kids, depending on their age, either took a nap or played. Around 3:45pm it was time to work on getting dinner ready (we either have to eat early or late, since the time for trick-or-treating is 5:30-7:00pm). We decided that for this trip we would all do our own dinners, and tonight ours was tacos.
After dinner, the kids were itching to get their costumes on – well, Tyler & Sam were. Drew wasn’t quite sure he was into this whole trick-or-treating thing. The older two had decided that they both wanted to be skeletons this year, so we reused some old costumes for them. We didn’t think that Drew would wear anything, but we took him the Detroit Lions uniform set that Tyler got for Christmas a couple years ago. He put it on without complaint, however.

    Once 5:30pm rolled around, Mike took his daughters and his niece, Callie, out. The kids & I hung around and waited for Jeff and his sons before starting out. Once Drew figured out that he got candy for doing this, he was really into it. His bucket started to get heavy, so I carried it but he had to come back and grab it from me at each site that was handing out candy. Tyler & Sam also enjoyed themselves, although about 1/3 of the way through the campground Sam started getting tired (it was hot – the kids had pulled off their masks and gloves early in our walk). We finished walking around the back loop before Jeff took Thomas and Andrew back with him, and Sam took off at this point as well. Tyler, Drew, & I continued our trek around the front section of the campground before returning to the site around 6:30pm.

By the time we got back it seemed that most of the people traffic had passed by our site already, so we worked on picking up our dinner mess. Once again we gathered around the campfire to relax in the evening. Tonight the kids joined us, and we made s’mores with them. Of our family, Drew got put to bed first, followed by Tyler & Sam about 45 minutes later. By this time the adults were all that was left, and we hung around outside until close to 11:30pm before turning in for the night.

Sunday, October 7th - 91/64°, Sunny

    I had a very rough night last night trying to sleep. I woke up around 4:30am with an incredible back-ache/stomach ache. I tried to tough it out, but by 6:00am Tara had had enough of my tossing and turning, and finally took me out to the couch, where I had to get Sam up and moved into our bed. I managed to get a good hour of sleep before trying to turn over, which hurt too much. Unfortunately, the kids started moving around by 7:30am in the bunkhouse, so that pretty much ended my attempts at sleep. We have a spare queen sized mattress at home, and needless to say it will be going into the camper next spring.

    Since we were all awoken by Tyler & Drew’s messing around, we decided to get up and get moving. We worked on breakfast before heading outside to get started packing up. We weren’t really in a hurry, as checkout time isn’t until 1:00pm, but we had to put away all of the decorations that we used for the trick-or-treating last night. We had pretty good success putting everything away, and ended up with enough time to make sandwiches for lunch. After eating, everyone decided to head over to the playground across the road to let the kids play for a while. All of the kids had a blast, but after an hour in the heat us adults at pretty much had enough.

    Once we got back to the campsite we finished putting away the last few items before hooking up the truck and getting ready to pull out. Mike & Kris left first, and they avoided the line at the dump station so they made it out of the park without any problems. Jeff & Becky, as well as us, had to use the dump facilities, so it took us a little longer. We left first, and headed out of the campground around 2:00pm.

    The drive home was smooth; with the only issue we faced was how we were going to park the camper in the yard. Normally Dad backs the camper in to park beside the house, but he and Mom were at a soccer game. I could do it, but I am not really comfortable backing in off of a road with a 55 MPH speed limit. I had been working for the past few weeks to finish the back yard section of the driveway, so we decided today to try it out. I pulled into the driveway (truck first), then drove the car into the back yard through the new gate and driveway section to test out how firm the ground was and how far the new driveway section would sink. It looked pretty good, so we decided to take the trailer through to turn it around and bring it back to the driveway. We wanted it parked on the paved section so that I could wash it and do some maintenance before putting it away for the winter. With the exception of my inability to back the trailer up to the house straight, everything else worked perfectly. The driveway held pretty weld considering the weight that I just drove across it. Only a couple of spots will need to be patched up, and I may wait until spring to worry about that.

Trip Summary

    All in all, this was a very nice trip. Aside from the heat that seemed really out of place in October, we had great weather. No rain, not too much wind, lots of sunshine. The campsites were very nice and large. This gave the kids lots of room to roam and play. Aside from the constant raining of acorns onto our roof, I have no complaints about our location this year.

    Aside from my forgetting the camera and the trip I drug us all out on, I believe that everyone had a great time. The kids had fun, even if they didn’t always follow directions. Tara and I were able to relax, which is a nice break from our constant running around at home. And the best part of all is that we got to share the entire experience with friends.

    Next year’s Halloween trip is uncertain, as we are contemplating going to Lake Huron Campground (where we stayed for the Deckerville Homecoming). I’m sure more discussion will occur over the winter, but a certain nostalgic part of me will miss our trip to Bay City every year.