I have learned that when a campground says or lists that they "have wi-fi" it means 1 of 3 things:
- The campground has wifi that you can access in your camper/trailer/etc
- The campground has wifi...but you have to pay an additional fee to use it
- The campground has wifi...but only in one building that you have to go to.
So far no campground has had #1. Our last campground ended up only having it in their welcome building at the front of the property and I never found time to trek down there to use it. Hence why I never blogged last Saturday as promised.
Our current campground also listed that they have wifi, but it came with a fee. I bit the bullet and paid for a couple days of it just so I could finally blog. I'll send you the bill later. ;)
In the 1st week we stayed at 5 different places! Whew! That was a little much. We headed south for a few hours and stayed 1 night at New Lisbon Family Campground.
Then we made our way to the Cinci area in Ohio and stayed a few nights at East Fork State park.
Our plan was to go to the Creation Museum but we decided not to last minute. We did however tour a neat castle called Loveland Castle or Chateau Loroche.
Little Miss was SOOOO excited for this one. She dressed up in her Sleeping Beauty dress, glass slippers, crown and necklace.
She even cried that she didn't want to leave 'her' castle when it was time to head back to the trailer. It was a cheap yet neat thing to do.
Next we started our trek up to north eastern ohio. We used boondockerswelcome.com and found a family south of Columbus who was willing to let us park our rig on their property for a night or two. They were such a wonderful couple and went above and beyond and offered up their washer and dryer to us! They had water and electric we could hook up to and even a fire ring and picnic table.
They told us about Mott's Military Museum near them and we walked through that. I highly recommend this place!!
It has tons of war memorabilia ranging from the revolution to the war on terror. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside but some of our favorite things were 1 of only 2 life masks of Abe Lincoln( the other is in the smithsonian), hair from George Washington, a piece of the Arizona from Pearl Harbor t name just a very few. They have helicopters, planes, tanks and stuff of the sort outside along with a display about NASA and things that were really used in space. I read a review that said they went through it in 90 minutes. I have no idea how they managed that! We were there for 2 hours and had to skip a lot unfortunately because we had to head to a new camping spot that day.
We made our way up between Columbus and Cleveland and stayed at another property we found at boondockerswelcome(free places to stay, you just pay $24 a year).
The family had hookups like the previous hosts and even let us dump our tanks(grey water meaning sink and shower and then the black tank which is sewer stuff)in the field. Don't worry, it was just prairie grass not crops or anything! They had 2 boys that Snuggle Bug played with and they invited our family to swim in their pool and use the swing set and trampoline. They were so gracious. The views were amazing too.
We then stayed at Roundup Lake near Akron for 1 night. This place was hopping! Our social butterfly, Sissy, enjoyed it immensely but it was a little too crowded for our taste. The kids got some time in at the pool.
Then we stayed put for 5 nights in Jefferson Ohio at Kenisee Lake up in north east Ohio by my grandma( and my mom who is staying with her for a few weeks). They had the best showers and restrooms at Kenisee Lake!!! We visited my Grandma and then my mom came and camped with us for a few nights which was really nice. We just switched to a different campground yesterday since our previous one did not apply the Passport America discount to weekend stays(we are finding this a lot). So we needed to find a cheaper campground that was closer to our budget of $20 a night.
our view behind our trailer
We pulled in to our new campground and we immediately wanted to run the other way to be completely honest. We were use to pools, sparkling lakes, and mini golf courses. This campground had none of that.
Sissy said with fear in her eyes,"I am staying in the trailer the entire time."
But the Holy Spirit reminded me that my prayer has been that God put us right where he needs us. So we must need to be here. We decided to be part of the solution and contemplated how to best serve the campground and the people in it. It looked like many people lived here in little trailers, pop ups and tents.
We decided we could easily do things like weed the overgrown playground where 2 cute little brothers were playing. We also realized this would be our first opportunity to do our worship music at campground since they didn't already offer anything like that.
But the Holy Spirit prompted us to go one step farther...
Why not provide a free meal?
We initially thought about just doing hotdogs, chips, and cookies Sunday around lunch time but then when we went to the front office to run it by the manager( who is very nice btw and funny) he informed us that the people staying at the campground were all workers at a local renaissance fair. The fair goes from the beginning of July till this upcoming Sunday. No one would be here Sunday during the day then.
We also thought that they might all be getting sick of hotdogs by now and decided to do more of a home cooked meal of chicken n noodles, mashed potatoes, corn, rolls and lemonade.
So we decided that Saturday night( tomorrow) after they got back from work would likely work best.
We did up some quick fliers for what we called a Free Meal and Music and the manager took some to pass out( he had already been spreading the word) and had us post some around the campground. Hubby and Sissy also passed a few out to those outside and we'll catch everyone before they head back to work the faire tomorrow. We have gotten a very good response so far.
We used a gift card that we got before we left for our trip to purchase the groceries and supplies( thanks Ron and Sheree!!).
We would appreciate prayers for a good turn out, good weather, to calm any nerves Hubby and Sissy may have, and for those eating and listening to the music to have an open heart.
I want to add that after deciding to do all this we were all really excited and our attitudes did a 180. The kids went outside to play and they said it really wasn't too bad, it was just so different from where we have stayed it took a little time to adjust. There is a playset, volleyball net, cornhole, and horse shoes. There are also pop machines that are only .50 and the kids were over the moon about that lol The people here are nice and I am really intrigued by their line of work( we really wanted to go to the Renaissance Faire but not sure that we can afford it). I hope to be able to talk a lot with everyone and get to know them better.
These past 2 weeks have seemed so long but not in a bad way. There have been plenty of moments of irritation amongst all of us of course. Not so much because it's a small space but because our lives have radically changed and that throws a person off a bit. Add in it some moments of stress( like gps taking us down a road with a bridge we can't clear, or a slide that refused to come out for instance). We are getting more use to the flow of it and we are getting set up and tear down of our trailer down to a science.
We could also use lots of prayers for wisdom and clarity for the next leg of our journey. We'll be heading up to Niagara and heading out east. The mountains put a knot in my stomach at the mere mention of them. Even pulling 12000 pounds of trailer up and down hills isn't fun. But the interstate also makes me break out in a cold sweat. It only took a mile of semis flying by us and our trailer swaying like crazy for us to stick to highways. But highways in the mountains aren't a great idea but staying on the interstate might be equally as risky. We just aren't sure what to do( I have been researching all of this via Hubby's phone for the past week).
We have to decide pronto since we are only here till Monday!!
Many Blessings,
The Mama
