Many of my favorite memories from childhood involve camping and I always thought I would camp regularly as an adult. But I forgot to add ‘a love of camping’ to my list of prerequisites when choosing a husband. I know he will see the error of his ways if I can just get him out there a few times, so I formulated a plan: rent cabins in state parks a few times and say it’s because we have small children. Then one day we’ll switch to tent camping, and if all goes well, he won’t even notice.

A few weeks ago I implemented phase one. I said I thought it would be fun to go on a mini family vacation. However, after looking for state park cabins within a couple of hours of our house, only Canoe Creek had anything available—probably because of fall foliage and hunting. Since the cabins sleep six in two bedrooms, we decided to split it with friends who have a daughter our kids’ ages.

The weekend finally came. We were impressed by the cabins in how big the rooms were and how clean they were too. The only problem—rain. It wasn’t too big of a deal though. It did hamper our campfire cooking efforts, but the cabin had a well-equipped kitchen so we were good to go. Since we had three toddlers between us, we brought crafts and games. We also took a little trip on Saturday morning to Gardners Candies in Tyrone and Benzel’s Pretzels in Altoona. We couldn’t take tours of either because it was Saturday, but the kids still enjoyed visiting both and picking out treats. That afternoon the kids went to a presentation about animals at the park education center. Even with the rain, it was still a good day. And the best part for my husband and I was probably when he made a chance stop at Gearhart’s Meats & Country Store on Turkey Valley Road. He went in for a box of crackers and came back with about $30 in homemade jerky and cheeses. The owners kept giving him samples of everything and he was in there for about a half hour. My bet is that the Gearharts know a sucker when they see one. But they sure do know how to make jerky and cheese. It’s definitely a place we plan to swing by again when we’re passing through.

The day we were leaving had the best weather, of course. So my husband and I decided to take the kids on a short hike to the limekilns in the park. That led to another short hike to the overlook and then another one to the quarry. The kids had a good time running around the kilns. My three-year-old actually did pretty well climbing the mountain to the quarry and only needed to be carried a short bit on the way down.

It turned out to be a nice mini-vacation and relatively cheap too since we split the cabin (abt. $100/night) and food with our friends. The only thing I was a little disappointed in was how close the cabins were to the edge of the park, but since my goal is to ease my husband into this, it all worked out.