At 2:14 on Saturday morning, Moose sat straight up in the tent and let out a howl that probably woke half the campground. Two raccoons were on our cooler. One of them had the lid partway open and did not seem the least bit worried about a 70-pound hound.
That was the low point of a weekend I would do again tomorrow. We camped two nights at Long Branch State Park, about ten minutes west of our duplex in Macon, and the whole thing cost us $46.
The gear we already had
The tent is Tyler's. He bought it when he was a teenager, it's a four-person dome, and one of the poles has been splinted with duct tape for longer than we've been married. It lives on the top shelf of our bedroom closet and smells a little like a garage. It kept the rain off, which is all I ask of a tent.
Everything else was borrowed or already in the house. My parents loaned us two camp chairs and their big cooler. The air mattress is the one we keep for when my friend Kayla stays over. Pillows, blankets, a cast iron skillet, the old coffee percolator my dad has had since before I was born, two flashlights and a can of bug spray. If we'd had to buy camping gear, this would be a very different post.
How the weekend went
We drove out Friday after Tyler got off work. He'd done his mowing yards on Thursday evening so the weekend would be clear. By 7:30 the tent was up on a basic site with no electric hookup, close enough to the water that we got a little breeze. Supper was hot dogs over the fire and foil packets of potatoes and onions I'd cut up at home.
Saturday, after the raccoon incident and a few more hours of sleep, we made eggs and bacon in the skillet and walked one of the trails before it got hot. By early afternoon it was in the low 90s, so we spent a couple of hours at the swimming beach, which costs nothing. Moose stayed in the shade with a bowl of water and watched the swimmers. Tyler napped in a camp chair. I read half a library book.
Saturday night was the good part. A fire, s'mores, frogs going all along the lake, and no phone signal worth checking. The raccoons came back around midnight, but the cooler was locked in the CR-V by then, so they left disappointed and Moose only howled twice.
Sunday morning we made coffee in the percolator, packed up and were out by checkout. We were home by noon with a pile of laundry that smelled like campfire and a dog who slept the rest of the day.
The whole weekend in dollars
| What | Cost |
|---|---|
| Basic campsite, two nights | $28 |
| A bundle of firewood | $6 |
| Two bags of ice | $5 |
| S'mores supplies from Dollar General | $5 |
| Gas, there and back | $2 |
| Total | $46 |
The food mostly came out of our regular grocery budget. Hot dogs, potatoes, eggs, bacon, bread and peanut butter are things we would have eaten at home that weekend anyway, so I didn't count them twice. The only food I counted as camping money was the s'mores, since nobody in our house buys marshmallows unless there's a fire involved.
We bought the firewood near the park instead of hauling some from home, since campers are asked not to move firewood around. Gas was almost nothing because the park is so close.
For comparison, a regular weekend at home for us, with one Casey's pizza and a Walmart run for things we decide we need, usually runs $35 to $50. So two nights at the lake cost about the same as staying home. We came back more rested, and Moose came back convinced that raccoons are his life's work.
Next time, the cooler goes in the car from the very first night, we bring a second tarp for under the tent, and I pack more coffee than I think we'll need. We're already talking about going back in September, when the nights are cooler and the bugs have calmed down.
