Little Red Barn Campground, Quakertown, PA - my review

For our test run out, I wanted to a place close to home.  My only requirements were that it was a pet friendly site, and that it had water and electric hook up, since we wanted to test all that out.


I looked through all the brochures that Media Camping Center gave us, and decided on the Little Red Barn campground in Quakertown, PA.  It was about 43 minutes away.  Perfect.

I had to send a reservation request in via the website.  It was easy enough to complete and they called back within 45 minutes to make the arrangements.  She was very friendly and courteous.


Upon check in, I again found them to be helpful and courteous.  She had about 10 spots back to back in one area and she told us to just pick one that looked good to us.  She gave us a map which also had a code for the free wifi. (We had wondered about that as there is no mention I can find on the website).


We found the site easy enough.  Both the water and electric were close to our spot and there was a fire ring and movable picnic table.  The campground was fairly quiet and peaceful.


Unfortunately, we had a lovely view of.... the activities pavilion.

Upon walking around the entire campground, we found that all the lovely wooded spots were given to the all season guests or the tent campers (no electric, or water and a good distance from the comfort station).  The rest of were forced to look at each other's rigs or the pavilion.  The class C's, travel trailers, motor coaches and the single 5th wheel were all basically on top of each other.  Not very "campish" to me.


The pool was still closed but ready to go - it looked like it was very nice and would be fun to hang out in.  They also advertised a hayride at 6:00 with a movie night in the pavilion at 7:00.  The movie didn't appear to run and the 6:00 hayride was a miss for us.  Check in is at 3:00.  By 6:00, we were ready for dinner, and didn't want to wait til after.  I probably would have done the hayride a bit later if it was offered.


The comfort stations included about 4 bathroom stalls, several sinks with plenty of mirrors and plugs to get ready.  There were two enclosed showers as well.  I found them to be clean every time I used them. However, there was only one and the very front edge of the property.  They did have a port-a-potty at the edge of the tent camping area but that was it.


We walked through the pavillion which appeared to be a fun place to hang out when it's open...ping pong, a tv area, movie area, some toys and books.  The game room near the office was appealing to the kids too.  The camp store looked to be fully stocked with plenty of dry goods, as well as a refrigerated case with eggs, bacon, milk etc...

The playground was also nice and big for the kids.  It had this play set, another  bank of swings and a large sandbox - easily 10 x 10.  And a nice open field for the kids to run - a volleyball net was set up on one side.

They used it several times until we had an incident Sunday morning.  Some locals/all season kids were clearly used to this being "their turf" and were unwilling to share.  One little boy ran from swing to swing saying "mine" and would not allow my three year old to get on.  Nothing was said to him.  The 15 year old sent to "watch them" did nothing to control their bad behavior, but rather spent the entire time swinging as high as she could.  


Finally one of the kids got off and my waiting 8 year old could have a turn.  After a few minutes, the boy that had gotten off, about 4-5 years old took a running start and leaped onto my son who was actively swinging at the time.  He leapt on top of him, knocked him off and proceeded to stay sitting/standing on top of him pinning him to the ground.  The other kids including the "babysitter" either laughed or did nothing.   I immediately went over and (loudly) reprimanded the kid and told him to get off my son. Did I yell?  Maybe, but honestly not that loud.  Trust me, I can yell loudly at my children when I want to and this was not it.  I then looked at the other kids and told them then needed to learn some manners.  We opted to then leave the playground.  There was no point in trying to play while those kids were there.


About 10 minutes later, I have the kids settled in the camper taking a quiet  break with a movie when I happen to catch movement outside under our canopy.


I go out to see the naughty kids from the playground trying to play with our toys and an angry grandma. She wanted to know why I yelled at her kids.  I explained what her kids did (the running leap, the not sharing etc) and she then tried to argue with me about how she had adult witnesses about what really happened yadda yadda yadda.  The woman was completely irrational and unreasonable and refused to leave our campsite. She felt her kids did nothing wrong and that I had no right to yell at them.  It did not matter to her that my kid got hurt.


I told her I refused to discuss it with her ( I was actually a little afraid since Rob was gone with the van)  and said I'm going to management.  We walked up to the office, she lingered outside trying to find her adult witnesses and I went into the office.  I explained to the staff what happened, and that this women was harassing me and I just wanted to be left alone.  Then the women comes in and starts trying to fight with me again.  I again say, we just wanted to be left alone and that we would be gone by the 1:00 check out. As I was leaving I said if she came back to the site I would directly call the police.


I didn't bother to stick around to see what they would say to her, but I had a strong suspicion it went something like "don't worry about it, it's all over, they are just weekend people" or something to that effect.  Their own rules say that " Parents are responsible for children at all times. Please do not leave children unattended."  But clearly they do not enforce this.  And I find it incredible that it was OK for this woman to invade our space.


And frankly the morning was ruined.  I was afraid she would come back and do something to us or our campsite.  the kids wanted drinks but I told them no, because I didn't want to have to leave to go to the comfort station.


So while the grounds were clean and the amenities pleasant, the attitude toward not full timers was apparent. Between that and the lousy views, my grade is less than average.  I would not recommend this site for families.


Final grade:  C-

Our Inaugural trip

As I started this blog Friday, and I talked about lasting only 30 hours on our last trek into camping...I started to get nervous.  We have a three day trip planned soon.  Did we really want to get our feet wet (oh, please, let it not be raining our first trip out!) on a three day trip?  Several hours from home?

I mean we are camping newbies.  We really don't know much, just what I could read off of Pop up portal in three days... I still wasn't entirely sure what we were getting ourselves into!

So looking at our calendar, I figured out we could go out Sat afternoon, set up, make dinner then come home.  Rob and I play in a worship band for our church and we needed to be back Sunday morning. I asked Rob and he said, let's do overnight.  We can get up early, get to church and get back before the 1:00 pm check out time.

I secretly thought he was kind of crazy, but my desire to test things out won out over my husband's craziness.  So I booked the night at Little Red Barn Campgrounds in Quakertown, PA. It was only 45 min away, even closer to my dad's should any emergency pop up (no pun?  pup? intended).

I have to say, it went as well as about we  expected. Definitely lessons learned, but nothing major we couldn't handle.  We felt comfortable setting up, tried out some of our "mods" on a trial basis and I trepidatiously inched into the world of campground cooking. And Rob got to practice backing up with the pop up hitched more.... thanks to an experienced camper named Buzz who hung out and gave advice where he could.

Setting up wasn't too bad.  First blunder?  Stacking our firewood just inside the door.  Before we could do anything, we had to move all the firewood out.  After that, it was all about getting organized:

 

It took us a relatively short time to organize, hook up and set up.  The kids had their shelf which was a fun surprise for them - I filled it with toys!  And their hanging "closet" worked beautifully.  I'm pretty sure I can fit a second one in there for shoes. I had stored the outside lights in a basket which then became a handy toothbrush/toothpaste/fluoride rinse caddy.

We opted to leave the dinette down, as you can see, to use kind of like a couch.  The 5 of us won't fit around the table, so this was a better option for us.  The kids could sit and watch a movie, or play and be out of the way while we worked.

The "adult" side was pretty easy to organize too.  We added our own shelf to store our clothing - the soft bags we un-packed went under the dinette/couch to be out of the way.  I don't have a hanging pantry yet, but that is on our list of "mods" to get started on soon.

As I suspected, having things stored in boxes sitting around on counters made me nuts.  So we have to decide if we will hang a pantry, shelves or add sterilite drawer caddies to store our dry goods.

I was pleasantly surprised at how patient and well behaved the kids were while setting up.  Josh wanted to be involved with all the set up, and so we let him work with us.  Noah and Katelyn sat patiently just enjoying being outdoors.

With the inside organized, we then needed to set up water, electric and the stove.  The stove was the easiest.  It went right on, and I had no problems cooking:

 

We initially thought the water wasn't working....turns out, we were pushing the lever up instead of down.  I did take Bob's ( our sales guy) advice and get a rolling blue cooler for our sink to drain into.  Worked beautifully.  However, the brand new water filter shattered upon installation so I was really glad I had brought "back up" bottled water.  While Rob said the water tasted fine, I am a stickler about that - can't stand well water!  So I enjoyed having tasteless water!

Last was electric.  There was a box on a tree that we needed to plug into.  Again, on Bob the sales's advice, he said to buy this long 25 foot essentially extension cord (for campers, not the household variety) and we were pleased we did.  He said there's nothing worse than being a foot or so shy of plugging in.  He was right - we were about 3 feet shy and the extension cord was perfect. 

So we go into the camper, turn on the lights...nothing.  Huh?  What were we missing? I admit I panicked if just for a moment.  Was our new camper already broken?  Was this a mistake?  Rob calm as ever goes back out to the box in the tree and takes a look.  Turns out it's not plugged in all the way.  After that, perfect.  Hooray!  We had lights and air conditioning.

OK, so far so good....Camper is set up, we have power, water, a place to sleep, a way to cook....what are we missing?  I know there's something.  What could it be...... Oh I know.  Flamingo lights!

I mean what self respecting camper can hold their heads up proud without something like bright pink flamingo lights adorning their abode?

So after some learning curves, we figured out how to get the awning up and voila! Flamingo lights!

So there you have it, we're all set up.  Like I said, we did fairly well.  We did forget a couple of things...I forgot the regular graham crackers, all I had was gluten free.  That's OK.  Kids were completely satisfied stuffing marshmallows and chocolate in their mouths.  In fact, I put the very first marshmallow on Noah's stick, and by the time I got the other kids set, I found this:

Yep!  Never even made it into the fire. Eventually he figured out he liked roasted marshmallows too.  All three kids are a "toasted" preference, not burned like their mom likes!

Other items I forgot....some kind of laundry hamper would have been helpful, a step stool would have been nice when putting up the awning, a nightlight for my scared-of-the-dark kids, a 2 x 4 piece of wood....the plot we were on was not level so even with the camper down in front as much as it could go, we still weren't quite level.  Our new friend Buzz advised us to bring 2 x 4's for these scenarios.

What else?  I forgot a washing pan...the sink in the camper is just a tad small for washing dishes.  And frankly, I think I'd rather dump and clean as I go rather than deal with the "grey water" container at the end.  While not forgotten, we found that Command hooks would have been helpful to hang on the front of the stove for a pot holder and a couple of utensils....  and a potty chair.

Oh yes, a potty chair while I thought not necessary really is.  We figured out too late that 3  year old Noah, couldn't get out of the end bunk by himself.  So first, I awoke around 2 am to find he peed all over his and Josh's bunk...Move Josh to dinette with KAtelyn, move Noah into bed with Rob and I.  About 6:30 rolls around and I awoke to Noah peeing on me and our bed!

Uggggghhhhhh!

So he will be sleeping on the low to the found dinette and his little potty training chair will accompany us. Fortunately, having potty trained three kids in the last 8 years, I know how to clean mattresses.  The bunks are drying as I type this!

The only other issue worth mentioning is the cold.  I felt like I had a lot of blankets and such, but once it hit 48 degrees, we got really cold. The kind of cold that wakes you up and your nose is cold, cold.  The furnace is not working and we don't have a ceramic space heater yet.  So next time, if it's still scheduled to go below 50, I will have either a space heater or bring the sleep bags.

And that was our trip. We lasted more than 30  hours.  No one fell in a lake.  No one caught fire and we had fun.  The kids LOVED it.

I did end up missing church.  Having gotten up several times in the night (did I mention the "Mommy, there's a spider in my bed?" episodes?) I was just wiped.  And dirty. And icky.  I was simply NOT going to church to stand up in front of everyone on the worship team!  Rob went though, while the kids and I stayed back to sit quietly (OK, maybe not so quietly - see tomorrow's review of the campsite) and to make a quick lunch before we started packing up.  I found I could even start a fire without Rob - hooray!.

Tomorrow, I'll share my thoughts about the campground, and whether or I would, or would not recommend it to other families.

Kamping with our Kids

And so it begins.

This week, Rob and I bought our first Pop up camper.  It's not new, but new to us.  It's a 1993 Jayco Jay feather 1006.

We paid $3000 which I think was a fair price.  It's clean, doesn't need any renovating and best of all - it has an air conditioner!

Seriously?  AC?  Talk about being spoiled.  As I kid, I spent many many summers either in a tent or at least 3 different used pop ups my family owned.  I remember sweltering in the Florida heat - we went down every year during the summer to visit my grandmother....and it was alway hot.

I mean, there is nothing worse than trying to sleep in 95 degree heat, right?  They say history repeats itself and once again I am finding myself going down to FLorida in the summer after school gets out.  We are big big Disney fans (we go once or twice a year depending on how far our Disney Vacation club points can get us).  So AC was an absolute must for me.  I didn't care what else it had or didn't have, as long as it had AC.  I can get around pretty much any other obstacle.

So we picked up our new to us camper, drove it home, and set it up in our driveway.

We have our first reservation already so I must quickly get "our house in order" as it were.  We need bedding, cooking supplies, a clothesline, a garbage can, etc...and of course, with three kids 8, 6 and 3.....some toys to bring along. 

We are a gluten free family as well, so  most of those fun camping foods are out or at least need to be modified.  I need to plan out the meals well ahead...I'm guessing for instance, that the campsite sundries store will NOT have gluten free bread.  Just a hunch.

So  we are off and running.  I suspect while we have cub scouts, circus tickets and general yard work to do this weekend, we will also spend a significant amount of time getting ready for our first trip!

Any advice to offer for this first time Kamping with our Kids is welcome!