Our Assateague Island Camping Trip

We recently took a quick trip to Assateague Island. We were incredibly blessed to arrive on a 70-degree day, and we had so much fun spending some unplugged time together as a family. These are some pictures from the trip. Ethan came home one day with this fun pop up camper. He scored it for an incredible deal, and this was our first time using it. Naturally, I had to style a shot for Deeply Rooted. There are horses all over the island. It was pretty cool to see them, but the park rangers had to follow them around to make sure they wouldn't kick or bite anyone.Kaiden was trying to convince me that a dinosaur had been walking by, ha.Pardon the mess. :) I love that we could park right on the beach. Ethan's thoughts: "Annnnnd the waves are terrible today."

Camping at Gualala River Redwood Park

 We had the opportunity to camp in Gualala, California over our Labor Day Weekend. A few days before the weekend started, we got a text from one of our friend's saying that a family backed out of the camping trip and they had an extra space for us. We had just gotten our camper back and were itching to go camping so it worked out perfectly!The drive was insane. We decided to take an "alternative route" which (we later found out) was meant for sport bikes. Imagine poor Ethan having to deal with the stress of driving our giant truck and camper on tiny, gravel roads. There were a lot of one lane roads and several points where I could look down and see rocks falling. Add some crazy, windy curves and you've got yourself a sick stomach and a nice headache. After three hours of driving, we arrived at our campsite. It was small, but gorgeous. We were surrounded by tall redwoods and within walking distance there was a river.We spent the next three days with three other families. The kids played their brains out and we spent most of our time huddled around a campfire sharing stories and laughs. It was pretty cold since we were minutes from the beach. (It's still mind blowing for me every time I'm at the coast...to think that I'm at the edge of our country is pretty cool.) Our travel trailer was amazing. I loved that we had a space of our own amongst all the tall Redwood's. It was warm and comfortable. The other families would joke around and say stuff like, "Have fun sleeping in your condo!" Nonetheless, this trip definitely confirmed our love for the trailer. No more uncomfortable air mattresses. :)We had no cell phone service which was amazing. We all kept saying that normally we would have our phone glued to our hands. It was a refreshing time to just step back from the busy of life and just hang out. All these pictures are kind of random. I didn't take near as much as I normally do and I think that followed suit with the desire to set technology aside. I'm learning to be in the moment instead of merely capturing it. However, I still am posting a bunch of pictures so this is kind of a long post! Hopefully this will give you the camping itch. There's still time to go before fall arrives. :)