Just Us

The impetus for our most recent road trip to North Carolina was The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  My oldest, Hannah, is a senior in high school and wanted to see UNC.  So last spring, as we were looking at our summer, we realized we had four days to squeeze this trip in.  So we began researching lodging.  I was on AirBnB, my husband was googling camping.

“Meet The North Country.”  My husband said enthusiastically as he held up a picture of a 26 foot camper.  “Um, OK.  Why not?”  I replied after a long pregnant pause. Any other reply may have crushed him and his spirit!  “Where will we camp?”  I asked trying to get a taste of his energy.  He ushered me over to his computer where he showed me Jordan Lake and it’s proximity to the camper rental and UNC Chapel Hill.  The more he talked, the more I knew we had to do the camping thing.  Not because we all felt the need to camp on this road trip but really because we knew Billy HAD to camp for this road trip.  We needed to do it for him.  And hey, why not?

 

The next four days were a gift.

We, as a family of five, had THE.BEST.TIME.

After the camper was unhitched, the gear unloaded, Grace and Megan began throwing the football around and Hannah was playing wiffle ball with herself.  All we could hear was the sound of their shouts and laughs and cackles.  Megan came up to me and said “That’s it Mom.  My hands are up.  I admit it. This is more fun than I thought it would be.”  We had only been there 2 hours!

We played on the beach, we swam in the lake.  It was so warm on top.  The further

you went out, the deeper the water got, suddenly, below your knees you felt cold water.

“Mom!  Can you feel it? It’s so much colder down there – that is so cool!”  Grace yelled.

We went paddle boarding and kayaking.  Grace, Hannah and I attempted headstands on the paddle board. Grace experienced success.  Hannah and I can say we tried!  We played.  We put three people on a paddle board and

 

discovered it is not meant for three people.  Megan got to paddle board and kayak solo for the first time.  Megan swam under a busy bridge.  We grilled outside, we ate outside.  We went out to the quintessential General Store and bought a red and white checkered table cloth just so we would look like “real” campers.

 

 

 

Over the years, we’ve taken many a trip with our family.  We vacationed at Cape Cod for ten years with another family.  We’ve been to Beaufort, North Carolina four or five times to visit Billy’s dad.  We’ve also been to Sanibel Island, Florida.  I’ve been thinking about what made this trip so different from others.  I wondered was it their ages? The camping? The location?  Maybe it was a little mix of all of that but I really do believe that what made it so great was because it was just the five of us. Just us.

 

 

 

 

 

Before you return your rental camper, you’ve got visit the dumping station!

Oh, and UNC was big hit!