Trailaler Adventures

Duncans Mills Camping Club is a private campground located on the Russian River.  You can request to stay there for 3 days and 2 nights as a trial before committing to the lifetime membership.  We decided to give this a try for our anniversary weekend to see how we would like it.  You are required to do a tour, which only takes about an hour and meet with one of the representatives to review the membership opportunity.  Casini Ranch is another popular public campground on the Russian River, we haven’t been there yet but wanted to mention it for anyone looking for places to go.

The Howard Family got our typical late Friday evening start, I don’t know how we will ever manage to get home from work and just hit the road.  If anyone has tips for this, please share, we need them!  The drive up was pretty uneventful, everyone was getting pretty hungry as we got closer to the campground.  As we drove up to the campground we noticed there was a pizza place and some cute shops nearby.  After we got settled in our campsite, Mark went to pick up a pizza and we settled in for the night.  The weather was cool, and the fog was coming in, much different than a typical warm August night at home.

 

Saturday morning, we decided to take our dog Lucy for a walk and explore the campground in the daylight.  The grounds are really beautiful and there is good separation between campsites.  Duncans Mills is a riverfront property in a very quiet and serene setting, you feel like you’re a world away despite being only an hour and a half from home.  We all walked down to the private beach where they have complimentary kayaks and canoes to use during your visit.  Ryan gave the playground a try and we walked down to the café right outside the campgrounds to get a cup of coffee.  The campground was having their annual kid’s day, talk about picking a perfect weekend to go, so we headed back to the trailer to get ready for that.  They had a bounce house, games, sack races, tug of war and a BBQ lunch for everyone.  The kids had a great time and it was a really nice community of people.  You can definitely tell that the members of this campground really love it and take a lot of pride in putting on fun events.

After the kid’s day events, we took a tour of the property and reviewed the membership information, it was all very enticing, especially knowing how much campgrounds charge for full hookup spots now.  We decided to sleep on the information before deciding.  Midafternoon, we thought it would be fun to drive down to the Sonoma Coast, which is only a 10-minute drive away.  We explored the area for a little bit and the cute little shopping center near the campground.  That evening, we enjoyed dinner and smores by the campfire and just took advantage of the quiet, relaxing atmosphere.

 

Ultimately, we decided against a membership at Duncans Mills Camping Club.  We really enjoyed our time there, we just felt that since we were so new to having our trailer we didn’t want to feel obligated to have to go there if we bought a membership.  Also, sometimes it’s nice to get away from the heat, but we really enjoy warmer weather and swimming at a lake during the summer.  Our kids were pretty little when we took this trip, Jack wasn’t even six months old.  As the boys get older, we want to travel to national parks and explore a lot more.  All in all, we had a fantastic anniversary weekend.  Duncans Mills Camping Club was a perfect place to celebrate 11 years of marriage!

Deciding where to go on our very first adventure was a big decision. We wanted to go somewhere that would have plenty of things to do to keep us busy, because anyone with small kids knows that keeping them busy is the key to your happiness and sanity! Since this would be the maiden voyage, we didn’t want to go too far for a couple of reasons. First of all, towing a trailer takes some getting used to, I actually still haven’t attempted it. I selfishly enjoy sitting in the passenger seat getting uninterrupted Pinterest time on my phone. For now, I’m going to leave the towing to Mark. Secondly, has anyone ever taken a long trip with a five month old and a preschooler? For those of you who have, you realize, the shorter the trip the better.

We decided to leave on my birthday and planned an early start…that didn’t happen. Early start! What were we thinking? We’ve never packed up a trailer before, have two small kids, and a dog…early starts don’t exist in our world! I also forgot to mention that I should’ve gone to the grocery store the night before, however, the kids decided to not go to bed easily that night so we decided we would just run to the grocery store in the morning. So, after packing up the trailer, the kids, and the dog and stopping at the grocery store, we finally headed out around 10:00 am, two hours after our originally planned time.

The drive up seemed like a breeze. We stopped in Oakdale to feed the baby and take potty breaks. One thing I would like to mention is that it would be great if there was a sign somewhere before you leave Oakdale stating this is the last gas station before New Priest Grade Road…this becomes significant in a little bit. We continued on, and from what navigation said, we figured we could make it without any more stops.

As we headed past Lake Tulloch on Highway 120 and approached New Priest Grade, we had no idea what we were getting in to. Ignorance is bliss in this situation. New Priest Grade has a 4% grade with a lot of switchbacks. As you drive up you cant help but think, “where in the heck does this windy, steep road lead”. It was 100+ degrees out and there is a sign that tells you to turn off your AC. Our SUV seemed to be pulling the trailer pretty good up the grade and then, it happened, our gas light came on. All I can say here is that Mark gets major brownie points for holding it together during my crazy panic. All I kept thinking is that it was so hot, we have an infant, the AC is off, where is the next gas station, and on and on. I was panicking about what we are supposed to do if we run out of gas on this road, there isn’t anywhere to pull over, what will we do??!! Any mom reading this is totally understanding my panic right now, my heart was racing. Mark remained so calm. Finally, as we climbed to the top, we saw a little restaurant and all I thought was please, please let there be a gas station. Mark pulled over and I ran into the restaurant and asked the first employee I saw where the nearest gas station was. He quickly and calmly replied that it was a half mile up the road, obviously I wasn’t the first to stop and ask this question. That last half mile seemed like the longest of my life, but we made it to the gas station and headed on. We drove through Groveland and then arrived at the Pine Mountain Lake campground, we made it!

The campground is great! You really feel like you are camping here. There are 11 RV sites with full hookups, which we needed since we don’t have a generator yet. The sites are also really affordable, $36.50/night. We set up camp and just decided to relax at the site for the rest of the day. You can’t have campfires at Pine Mountain Lake as the fire danger is just too high there, but we were still able to make Smores on the BBQ. We were really looking forward to swimming at the lake and fishing over the next couple of days.

The campgrounds at Pine Mountain Lake allow you to utilize the private lake amenities by purchasing a 7 day vehicle pass for just $27.00. This is a really great deal! The following day, we headed to the lake and let me tell you, we had a blast! Despite the very hot weather, there are plenty of shady spots on the beach to keep you cool. Ryan swam for hours, we practically had to pry him out of the lake just to eat lunch. The lake is small, but perfect with young kids. It has everything you need, even icy cold beers. Ryan loved swimming to the dock and thought about going down the slide but just wasn’t ready yet. After all day at the lake, we headed back to our campsite for dinner and relaxation.

The next day, we decided to take Ryan fishing before it got too hot. Mark stopped by the marina to get a fishing license and then we headed over to fisherman’s cove. Ever since we bought the trailer and told Ryan we would be going camping, all he wanted to do was go fishing. It was a peaceful morning, with no one around. Mark had a great time teaching Ryan how to fish. They didn’t catch anything, but the memories alone made it worth it.

We then headed back to the lake for more swimming. The vehicle pass allows you to use the pool as well, but the lake was perfect for us. All in all we had a wonderful first trip. It was nostalgic for me to go back to Pine Mountain Lake as we had vacationed up there a couple of times when I was a child. Everything comes full circle when you watch your children do the same things you did. I should mention that Pine Mountain Lake is on the way to Yosemite and if we had more time, and the kids were older, we would have definitely gone there as well. We can plan for that next time as I’m sure we will be back!

The Howard Family travel trailer adventures began in July of 2017, when we purchased our Mighty Lite trailer. Mark has always tossed around the idea of owning a RV, but we never seriously researched it. Anyone who knows me well, knows I’m not exactly a camper. I mean, I love the outdoors and I don’t mind getting dirty, but the idea of sleeping in a tent and having to use a dirty bathroom, or no bathroom at all, doesn’t get me very excited. Where would I blow dry my hair?…But seriously?

After we had our second son, Jack, in February of 2017, I realized that with two boys I was going to need to find a way to get on board with camping. After all, I couldn’t deprive my boys of the camping experience. Boys NEED to go camping. Boys can just be boys when they go camping. They can get filthy dirty, roam around outside all day, and explore every bug known to man. Oh, I forgot to mention how exciting it is for a four year old boy to be able to pee outside…anyone with boys understands what I’m talking about here. That is something I didn’t understand until after I had boys since I grew up with a sister. I’m not saying that girls don’t need to camp, I’m just speaking from my experience of having two boys.

A friend of mine that has a trailer, took a recent trip to Oregon with her family and posted pictures on Instagram. It looked AMAZING, so amazing that I had to share them with Mark. Once Mark saw those pictures, he looked at me and said, “that is what I want to do”! Right after that we started looking and within a few weeks purchased our trailer. The whole process was funny because we really aren’t impulsive people, well maybe I’m a little more impulsive than Mark, but anyone who knows my husband knows he analyzes everything down to the last detail. After spending a very long day at the RV dealership, with both kids in tow (not my best idea to date, the picture above depicts that clearly), we blissfully drove our new trailer home.

I’m going to start posting about all the adventures we take in our trailer. We have affectionately been calling it the trai-La-ler, because that is what our four year old, Ryan, calls it and we love it! The trailer has been a life changing experience for our family. We live in a world that requires us to be so connected. Both Mark and I have busy jobs and life with two kids makes things even crazier. When we travel in the trailer, we are forced to disconnect and just spend time as a family, which is wonderful. We love that we can bring our dog Lucy with us and sad that our pug, Zoe, didn’t get to experience any trips as we lost her earlier this year. Last night, as Mark and I sat around the campfire, I told him that I’m enjoying the trailer more than I thought I would. After you buy one and reality sets in that you have this thing, you hope it’s going to be what you expected. It has been everything I’ve expected and more! I’m already talking about how badly I want an Airstream, I think Mark may be rolling his eyes at me when I say that, but I know he secretly wants one too! For now, our little Mighty Lite is perfect! Let the trailaler adventures begin!