Hunting Island Camping Trip

For spring break this year, we went on a camping trip to Hunting Island State Park. We had purchased a really cool tent a couple of years ago and hadn't had the chance to use it until now. We went down with mama and daddy and Bill, Jennifer, and their family. We had campsites that were pretty close together.
At the end of our road, there was a little park with a great playground. The kids had a lot of fun going down everyday to play.

Ginny learned to do the monkey bars all by herself.

Laura Lynn spent a lot of time in her stroller. We were afraid she would wander into the road and there were always bikes and big trucks going by.

Eli was on his own most of the week. He would get on his bike and take off each morning. He biked all over the park. He found lots of children to play with. He would go to the playground and play baseball, frisbee, etc. with whoever was at the playground. He biked around with Wyatt, Hannah, and Will a good bit too.

There was wildlife all over the campground. There was a patch of woods right behind us where a group of deer lived. One afternoon, we had 6 deer standing right by our tent. Bill was trying to feed them Dunkin Donut holes. We watched them for a while. We also had a raccoon that got into our food the first night we were there. We had been up at mama and daddy's camper for dinner and when we came back down to our campsite, the raccoon had stolen a bag of fruit snacks. He was sitting on the little hill behind our tent and we could see him with our flashlight. He had also slobbered all over our peanut butter jar. I sadly threw out our peanut butter. Several nights I heard the raccoons fighting in the middle of the night. They were everywhere around us. When Aubrey and his family got there, the raccoons opened up his ice chest that had two latches and ate off of his 3 lbs. of hamburger patties. They learned quick to put something heavy on their ice chest each night.

The weather was pretty cool most of the week and the water was definitely too cold to swim in. So, we just enjoyed walking on the beach and finding crabs and shells. This was Laura Lynn's first time walking on the beach. Last summer she was not walking when we went to the beach. She loved the wide open beach that she could run all over.

The kids took their DS games and their Leapster games which kept them occupied during parts of the day around the campsite.

This was our awesome tent! It had two rooms, but we kept the doors connecting the two rooms open. It fit our 2 cots on one side and the porta crib on the other side. The kids slept in between each night and on a mat by the portacrib. It was very roomy!

We even found a grizzly bear roaming around our campsite. : )

On Thursday, we celebrated Mama's birthday. For lunch, she and Eli walked to the lighthouse where we met her with the little girls and had a picnic. Jamie, Katie, and I then walked the 190 something steps to the top. The view was breathtaking!!! My legs were sure tired, but the view made it all worth it!

After we were finished at the lighthouse, we drove over to the lagoon where Uncle Bill had rented a few kayaks. He gave each of the kids a ride in the kayak. Jamie took one out for awhile and enjoyed being on the water.

Laura Lynn and I enjoyed hanging out on the shore watching all of the action.

Ginny and Katie enjoyed playing in the water's edge and playing in the mud. Eventually, they were so wet that they started shivering.

Daddy was enjoying a little fishing with the birthday girl. Unfortuately he didn't catch anything.

Uncle Bill and Wyatt started to throw Eli in the lagoon. He had a blast getting thrown into the cold water.

Unfortunately for Ginny, Uncle Bill decided it would be funny to throw her in too. She was not too happy with him!

On the morning that we left, our deer came for a final visit. This time I was able to feed them from my hand. I fed this one deer about half of a loaf of bread. It was awesome!!!

Overall, we had a great vacation. Katie has asked if we can make it our spring break tradition. We had so much fun biking all over the campground and seeing all of the beautiful nature around us. It was wonderful to wake up to the woodpecker on our tree each morning and to hear so many birds all day long. Can't wait to pull out the tent again for another Benson family camping adventure!