Halloween Camping

The Last Hurrah!

Halloween Camping, a tradition our family has come to love greatly, look forward to all year long.  It is also a bittersweet trip because it's almost always our last trip of the camping season living this far north.

We've done big Halloween Campouts at a couple of different state parks (my post for this year's location).  We've also done this trip at Maumee Bay State Park (no post to share about that one, you just get the link to the park).

East Harbor has 2 weekends to choose from for Halloween Camping.  This lessens the immediacy of booking and booking for extra nights that we won't be there due to work and school (cough: Maumee Bay).  Our group booked sites as soon as we possibly could, when reservations opened 6 months before our first night there.  I think we tried to start booking at 6 am and were able to book at 7 am.  Not only were there a plethora of sites to choose from, we got our coveted cul-de-sac sites (ok, so we had to fudge our camper length a little and hope for the best - it worked thankfully!).

Weekend events start on Friday.  Some events repeat both nights.  My kids enjoyed the Haunted Hayride and the Haunted Tunnel.  Nothing too scary for my kids not into scary things.

Hayride stuff during the day time

There was a pet costume contest.  Oscar the dog was dressed at Yoda-wg.  It matched the family Star Wars Theme quite nicely.  Oldest Kid was Princess Leia, Youngest Kid was Darth Vader.  I was Padme.  Husband was Han Solo.  I'd share a picture of us all, but I'm not going to share pics of my kids.  Here's Oscar:

We decorate our campsite with fun Halloween decor.  Except, I'm cheap.  All of our decor comes from the Target clearance sales.  Some people get really into it.  I mean REALLY into it.  My favorite campsite was this Lego campsite solely dedicated to decor.  It was cool - a life size version of an actual Lego set, complete with characters from The Lego Movie.

My kids' favorite part of this trip is trick-or-treating from campsite to campsite.  The loot they bring home is impressive.  I had purchased almost 200 bottles of bubbles, plus had a bit of candy.  Husband was out of stuff to give away well before the kids and I got back from begging trick-or-treating.

Sunday morning, it was time to pack up.  Admittedly, the process of packing up the final trip is a bit emotional to me.  We're not the only only ones to linger a bit longer than normal, taking extra care to pack things up, spend a bit more time talking with friends than getting on the road quickly.  I see other campers doing it, too.

We've had a great camping season.  Halloween Camping is our capstone experience.  Now it's ended and I am sad.  Seven whole months until Camping Season 2015.

Is it camping season yet?