Burlington: The Town, Not The Coat Store

Tuesday, August 2, 2022 - Wednesday, August 3, 2022 - Thursday, August 4, 2022

When we planned this trip, we originally scheduled ourselves to spend only one night in Burlington. Part of the reasoning behind this was that getting from Schroon Lake to Burlington was a two-hour drive at most (I think we did it in just under two hours). The other reason being that we couldn't find a campsite that would allow us to spend two nights in the same spot. We figured that if we were going to have to pack up the campsite anyway, then we'd be fine making our way to our next stop.

That said, as the dates above suggest, we changed our minds.

The North Beach Campground was unique in that it was situated directly in the town of Burlington. It was as if you were driving through a city with a camper, making a couple of turns, driving by a school, and finding yourself at the entrance to a campground on the shores of Lake Champlain.

While our campsite wasn't on the shore itself, it was a 5-minute walk to the beach, which was wide open and huge. It included a playground and tons of space for games, playing, and finding a spot away from others, which was a good thing with a dog.

So, naturally, the first thing we did after unhitching and unpacking a few things was to change and head down to the water.

"I've got my swim trunks and my flippy floppies"

Sunday, July 31, 2022 - Tuesday, August 2, 2022

In what seems to be a running theme during summer road trips with two young kids, updates are not as frequent as I'd like. And like in times before, I'm hoping that as the girls get older, I'll find myself with a little more time to update frequently or in real time.

For now, I'm going to take you back almost two years and continue our 2022 road trip through New York and into Vermont. Updates for this trip will be shorter in length for a couple of reasons.

The first reason being the time since the trip (and we've had another one in between this one and spring 2024).

The second has more to do with the emotional aspect of having to type these memorable trips with the family knowing that Lily - truly the greatest family dog in the world - is no longer with us. She ended up showing signs of cancer in the early summer of 2023 and crossed that poetic rainbow bridge in the fall of 2023. As tough as this may be to walk you through these trips, I'm hoping that it is also somewhat cathartic for me to think back on the best of the best with her.

A Family Affair in the Mountains of New York

Friday, July 29, 2022 - Sunday, July 31, 2022

One of these years, I hope, traveling with two kids will afford me a little bit more time to document in real time instead of months later. But much like our 2021 trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I have to recap our 2022 trip after the fact. Unlike that trip, though, I hope to be able to finish documenting it. I realize now that I never finished writing up about our stay at a small but cute community park along Lake Huron in Pt. AuGres, Michigan, as well as our final stay in Cuyahoga Valley National Park before returning home.

For now, let's look back at 2022, which took us north into New York and Vermont before whipping back south into Pennsylvania. It was a 9-day, 8-night trip that included five different stops and some on-the-fly decisions about when and where to go.

Our reasoning for piecing together a trip like this stemmed from the fact that the annual Menzel family reunion was set to take place at a state park in upstate New York the weekend of July 29-31. After checking things out, and knowing that visiting Burlington and the White and Green Mountains of Vermont has always been on our list, we figured now would be as good as any to take this trip.

Stop number one would be North-South Lake State Park, which was only three hours away from Wilkes-Barre. So, I guess, technically an overnight stay at the lake would be stop 1a and North-South Lake would be stop 1b. And most of our activities would center around what the rest of the Menzel clan was up to, knowing that the main reunion part would take up Saturday.

As for our campsite, it was located in a fairly large campground, even if it didn't feel that way because of the density of hemlocks towering dozens of feet above you.

Pretty Rocks and Pretty Hot

"Fill your life with experiences, not things. Have stories to tell, not stuff to show." -Unkown

Saturday, July 3, 2021 - Monday, July 5, 2021

The last major stop on this trip took us east a bit, but still along the shores of Lake Superior. Our destination was the second of three National Park Service-run parks: Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

Much of our pre-trip research told us that the best views of the rocks come from Lake Superior either via kayak or boat. We wouldn't quite be able to pull that off with two young kids and a dog, but we also knew that we'd still be able to take in some different sights and sounds.

The first of those would come from our remote, non-electric campground deep into the park. Little Beaver Lake Campground was nestled far from civilization near the aptly named Little Beaver Lake. There was a small waterway that connected to Beaver Lake. Both of these lakes and the campground itself were just a mile or so from the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior. And while the lake could be hiked to, it could not be seen from the campground.

No problem.

There's something beautiful about being in such a small campground. We had site 8 of 8 here.

The high humidity and rising temperatures into the upper 80s and low 90s with no ability to catch relief with air conditioning, however?

Problem.

There's Beauty UP Here

"Encourage your child to have muddy, grassy or sandy feet by the end of each day, that’s the childhood they deserve." - Penny Whitehouse

Thursday, July 1, 2021 - Saturday, July 3, 2021

Following a relatively smooth and scenic trip through northern Wisconsin and into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, we arrived at the shore of Lake Superior. We had made it. More than 1,600 miles from home.

We were staying at the Union Bay Campground in the Porcupine Mountains State Park. This campground is located at the foothills of the mountains and close to the visitor center.

Our site was one of the ones closest to the lake, although it wouldn't be a completely open view.

Still, it's hard to complain too much about a sight like that when you're also catching a light breeze, no rain, and temperatures in the upper 70s.

Getting to the Porkies

"Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit." - Edward Abbey

Wednesday, June 30, 2021 - Friday, July 2, 2021

Before I walk you through this short piece on getting further and further north, I need to go back to our first night on this trip back in Indiana Dunes National Park. In all of the chaos that was that first travel day, rain-soaked evening, and a wild night, I completely neglected to mention our campsite visitors at 1:00 a.m.

You don't want campsite visitors at 1:00 a.m. You especially don't want campsite visitors if they are of the racoon variety.

The commotion that came with that first day meant that, like this addendum, I forgot to do some things. I forgot to pack our cooler away before calling it quits for the night. All of our food - the meals Cara prepared and the groceries we purchased - was stolen and scattered. Honestly, we probably could have been fined by park rangers for doing something so stupid. But we cleaned things up - the campsite and not so much our egos - and added it to the growing list of "lessons learned."

Anyways...

The path to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan would take us through a big city and small town after small town. It would also take us to a pitstop at a campground in a wooded state park in Wisconsin.

Heading Westward Looks a Little Different This Time Around

"Our challenge isn’t so much to teach children about the natural world but to find ways to sustain the instinctive connections they already carry." - Terry Krautwurst

Monday, June 28, 2021 - Wednesday, June 30, 2021

I wanted to do this live as we were traversing westward and northward. But any parent of two super young kids will tell you that having even the tiniest bit of free time is pretty much impossible. Free time on a road trip is impossible.

This is something that has been on my mind since we first started this trip. I wanted to chronicle this journey. I wanted to highlight the good and talk about the bad. Taking two kids under the age of three 1,000+ miles and 16+ hours away from home, from routine, from what makes life easy, is quite the experience to put it simply.

When things were tough, I'll tell you we felt like calling it quits, turning around, and saying something like, "maybe in five years." But when things were good, when the girls were having the times of their young lives, we wouldn't have traded anything for that.

That's parenting. That's what makes these trips worthwhile. That's what makes others shake their heads when they hear what we're doing and what we've done (and to be honest, we do a lot of head-shaking ourselves).

But seeing our girls out in the wild, away from that routine, enjoying themselves in a place that's so foreign to them, that's what this trip was about.

There was good. There was bad.

But in the end, there were two kids, two parents (and some who would say just a couple of kids themselves), and a dog making their way to the Upper Penninsula of Michigan and back again in about two weeks. This is what we did during the summer of 2021...