Day 1

17 June (Punderson State Park, OH)

For the first day of our journey, we did lots of driving. We were out by 10:30am and arrived around 5:30pm. This was a really long and really exciting day. Everything felt smooth and familiar (most of this drive is the same as our drive to Pittsburgh and Raccoon Creek State Park last year). We stopped only a couple times for bathroom and gas. We packed lunch for the road and the kids were great in the car. 

We arrived at Punderson State Park, just east of Cleveland, OH excited and ready - this place is feels unexpectedly comfortable, and our campsite is right on the water. 

After setting up camp, we ate our first dinner of the trip: hotdogs and mac and cheese. We are really bummed to miss the Hamiltons on this part of the trip (they were diagnosed with covid earlier in the week and had to cancel), but we are hoping to catch back up with them on the way back east - only time will tell, now. While setting up camp, I realized that we have so much gear for this trip, and at a place like this with lots of tree coverage (and not a ton of campsite space), we won't need much stuff at all. It's going to be nice to eventually put all our gear into action! This Exploring the campgrounds, we felt increasingly cozy and calm, like we'd been here before. We'd seen similar flora and fauna while in Raccoon Creek (and this place isn't in a significantly different geologic location from where we live), so we weren't overwhelmed by the natural space so far (we'll save that for a later date). We did have a close encounter with a raccoon almost immediately upon the sunset. We hadn't closed up the kitchen (where we store small garbage-bags overnight), and the raccoon just appeared out of nowhere, getting right at our trash. It started me and I bolted - Cassandra braved the raccoon and yelled it away so we could secure it (the raccoon made some strong noises in response as it retreated)! We took this as a good benchmark for how cautious we should plan to with our food during this trip as so that we can best care for the natural spaces we will be moving through.

Admittedly, since we aren't able to hang out with our friends at Punderson, there is a part of me that is hungry to be on the move, but I'm sure we'll find fun stuff to do while we are here. 

And, we are off!

Back to Preparation (Day 0)

Move on to Day 2