Camping at Harrington Beach State Park

We gave camping a try this summer at Harrington Beach State Park, which is right on Lake Michigan in Wisconsin. .  (We camped once before with the cub scouts last year, but the scout leaders brought all the food.)

The camp site/Harrington State Park is beautiful and was impeccably maintained and clean.
We booked a "walk-in" site, which means we had a more remote campsite that you had to hike to instead of driving right up in your car.  We brought the wagon and were able to relatively easily transport all of our gear to the site (with a few trips, of course.)

This was the path to our campsite, which was nestled in a prairie.  

Our campsite - W4

Each time we camp, we seem to get a little bit better at it, learn what to pack, learn how to do things, etc.  It is definitely a learning curve for people that didn't grow up camping!

One of our biggest lessons was that you don't zip up all of the tent flaps at night or you end up with a tent that is sopping wet on the inside from 5 people exhaling in closed-up quarters! (We made that mistake when we camped for the 1st time with the scouts.)

 We were able to spend time on a picturesque stretch of Lake Michigan without a house or building in site.

 We tried our hand at cooking over a campfire. On the menu? Hot dogs and baked beans in a dutch oven.

 

 And s'mores of course!

 In the morning, we tried campfire eggs and potatoes... and learned another lesson...remember the salt and pepper!

We went on a hike the next day around quarry lake, through the woods, and on the beach bluff. 

 

 We ended up at the beach after our hike so we could cool off.

This first solo-camping experience truly couldn't have gone better!