Well, it’s that time of year again! We are heading out soon for our Summer vacation. Finally, FINALLY we are taking our beloved dogs with us. Send us good thoughts as we adjust to having our well-behaved 8 year old, Freddy, and our WILD child 6 month old puppy, Adrian. The map below shows our vacation trip. We are excited to come back through the UP of Michigan, ending our trip with a family wedding!

Before we head out, there are a few updates of camping trips we have done so far this spring. Eventually, we would like to visit every state park in Ohio!

First, we took our Spring Break and headed down to North Carolina, where we did some camping at Lake Norman State Park, just North of Charlotte. Lake Norman is the largest manmade lake in North Carolina. There are a good number of hiking trails as well as tons of mountain biking trails if that’s something you are interested in! The campground itself was pretty nice! We had a decent amount of space between sites, the lake was RIGHT there, and there was convenient access to hiking trails from the campground. In addition, the shower houses are brand new and there are some really cool cabins you can rent there as well!

It was a great trip as we got to see Scott’s sister and her roommate, their dogs, and get some good hiking in. The first trail we hiked was straight from the campground- Lake Shore Trail. It was around 6-7 miles long (I can’t believe Adrian made it the whole way!)

The next day, we drove to Grandfather Mountain. We attempted to hike as far as we could (there is some rock climbing that we wouldn’t be able to take the dogs up). It was a tough, uphill hike with lots of mud. we ended up stopping near a backcountry camping area. It was pretty cool because we were able to sit by a frozen “waterfall” area and each some lunch.

Scott and I did a few shorter hikes over the next few days. We definitely enjoyed the trip down and testing the dogs to see how they will do this summer!

Our next trip, we decided to leave the camper behind and do some tent camping! We headed to John Bryan State Park near Yellow Springs, OH. The campground was decent (very tricky to navigate), but not somewhere will ever plan on camping again. The only facilities were pit toilets. The water situation was dicey as the water tasted like pool water from all the chemicals.

The hiking was awesome, though! This is a place I visited often when I was younger. We hiked along the river. The pups did okay with the tent camping (despite some middle of the night barking at who knows what). We survived freezing temperatures. Overall, John Bryan is worth the trip for the hiking, but not for the camping.

Our final pre-vacay camping trip was down to Alum Creek State Park, just North of Columbus. We camped with some good friends, and did a little hiking. Alum Creek is a pretty busy place which isn’t surprising as it’s very close to Columbus. The campground was nice though and close to a dog park so the pups could be off leash for a little while.

Can’t wait to head out and see the west with our two best pups!