Camping Is For Everyone!: The Maiden Voyage (Lake Owyhee)

We just got back from our maiden voyage in the new pop-up as well as the first ever camping trip with our girls! It was a learning experience. We went to Lake Owyhee State Park in Oregon for Memorial Weekend, 2014. Good, bad and ugly, here we go!

Good
1. Fishing was excellent. The girls caught their first fish (tiny crappie) and had a wonderful time.
2. The weather was nice, if a little hot at times. We had electricity at our site so we plugged in fans to help keep us cool.
3. First trip of the year is all about working out the bugs and getting back in the swing of things. I feel like we did that.

Bad
1. People were out in droves. There was not an empty spot in the campground. But it was a holiday weekend, so yeah.
2. My family has been to this campground in the past and it used to be green and well taken care of. Now, there was almost no green grass and the grounds weren't in the same shape the used to be years ago. Budget cuts maybe?
3. The RV sites were SMALL. I could stand with my arms spread out and touch both our pop-up and the motorhome next to us. There was very little wiggle room at the site to even put our lawn chairs and canopy.
4. A lot of the sites near the top of of the park (closest to the road) were literally on cliffs. Thankfully we didn't book one of those sites because the kids would have fallen down the cliff.
5. The bathrooms were dirty and I did not see anyone clean them the entire time we were there (Thursday - Sunday). Our campsite was literally feet away from the bathroom/showers so we would have noticed.

Ugly
1. Aggressive dogs. Yeah. That's right. Someone pulled into the spot next to ours (basically in our lap) and the second she got out of the car she says, "we have aggressive dogs". So I ask, "aggressive towards dogs or kids?". Her response was "both." Obviously with two year old twins and a dog of our own that wasn't going to work. After speaking with the camp host and getting the Ranger's involved the aggressive dog people were moved to another site. What complete idiot brings dogs that are aggressive to a State Park with families and children? Needless to say a complaint was filed and the State of Oregon handled it very well, so kudos to them.
2. MOTHS. Oh. My. Dear. Lord. There were moths everywhere. Thousands of them swarming the trees near our campsite. Almost a month later we are still finding dead moths in our camper. We spent a good 2 hours a day just trying to capture and/or kill moths in the pop-up. Ridiculous. It was almost like an end-of-days infestation.

Lessons Learned

On this trip, our maiden voyage with the pop-up, we discovered that whoever is going to be at the camper needs to have the keys to the camper. Not the person on the boat out in the middle of the water. Otherwise you'll be stuck at the campsite with 2 screaming kids, no access to food/water in 90 degree heat sitting in direct sunlight cursing your spouse's name until you finally decide to break into the camper using a screw driver. Then the next day the spouse that enjoyed fishing and the father-in-law have to spend hours trying to fix the door so the camper can actually be broken down and driven out of the moth infested hell it sat in for 3+ days.

Sunscreen. If you have little ones bring lots and lots of that spray on sunscreen Works great!

I also tested a screened-in instant canopy that I feel deserves its own review post, so that will be coming soon!

Overall I'd give this trip a D. Here's to hoping the next trip is a little better!

Pictures