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Brook-N-Wood Late 2013 Season

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Fall is a special time up at BNW. The valley seems to come alive after the stifling heat of summer celebrating the cooler fall weather with apple festivals and county fairs. One more thing to celebrate:

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Our Apex is here and on site! That’s Poppi’s trailer to the left behind our site. It’s so wonderful to be so close yet have your own space. One of the best things on our Apex is the dinette. Not only can it seat all five of us but it’s transverse, meaning it extends from one sidewall to the other sidewall. That means it’s over 7 feet long from head to toe and if you read my last post you’d know how much I like to straighten my legs while I sleep. I know it sounds picky, but your knees will thank you.01-3

More fun in the leaves! Just something about a pile of leaves that kids love to jump in so much. Sarah and Ava had so much fun I didn’t even mind having to repile them.

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Did you know BNW had a “singing rock?” Completely missed on their brochure and website.13-4

Even Ryan enjoyed camping! He was born just a few weeks later, guess he couldn’t wait to get started!16

Our favorite weekend at BNW is their Halloween weekend. This is held during Columbus Day Weekend each year and the kid’s have a ball!  It’s now their first of two Halloween celebrations. Sites are decorated in spooky fashion, there’s a Halloween parade (pictured above), trick-or-treating, costume contest and even a haunted hayride! It’s also bittersweet though because it’s one of the last camping weekends left as the season ends on 10/31. If you’re like us and the kids are back in school and schedules busy, it may very well be your last camping weekend and you’ll find yourself taking down your decorations and winterizing your camper at the same time.

Tigers were the theme this year:

I just want to thank my father-in-law, Mario for all the beautiful pictures of this 2013 Season as they are solely from his camera. Maybe we’re too busy chasing after the kids but I’ll definitely strive to improve this during the upcoming 2016 season. Stay tuned for the summer of 2014, thanks for stopping by!

Brook-N-Wood Mid 2013 Season

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To be a kid again…

We’re continuing to have a ball at Brook-N-Wood. The summers in the valley can get a little hot but the pool definitely helps to cool you down.

It’s in these summer months where I started to really get the itch to buy our own RV. We’re still staying with in my in-laws in their trailer when we come up to BNW but seeing how much my children enjoyed it got me to start investigating our options into ownership. Out of these experiences came one of my now known famous quotes:

“Camping makes me cry.”

Just talking about how the kids enjoy camping so much led me to rekindle some of my own family camping memories and let’s just say I got a bit emotional. I wasn’t bawling or anything, maybe someone was cutting onions nearby….

Another thought: If and when you consider buying an RV, don’t depend on your convertible dinette to be a permanent bunk for anything but children. Most dinettes are advertised as drop down bunks when in fact they only  make out to be about 60 inches long. This is something you just discover, you take for granted being able to straighten your legs until the day/night comes that you can’t.

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“Bookends” Ava

Stay tuned for the last of the 2013 season, thanks for stopping by!

Brook-N-Wood Early 2013 Season

Spring of 2013 was our first experience with BNW campground. It’s so nice to get the kids out of the city and into the fresh air. You can lighten up a bit on the supervision up here. There’s a strict speed limit of 5 mph and kids always have the right of way. Most everybody knows each other and the kids can be a bit more free to wander and explore. There are hazards however, so you still have to keep a mindful eye, especially when they’re so little.13-2

Sarah loved the pool! Not afraid at all! She could spend hours jumping in. Ava was a little more apprehensive. I basically had to hold her the whole time. Nobody else could do it either. Daddy or bust!

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Sarah fishing in the brook with new found fishing pole.

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Also fun to throw rocks into the brook. They can spend hours doing this!

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Ava enjoying the field as most she can for someone who doesn’t know how to walk yet.

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Linda, Sarah and I at the playground. Hours spent here, too! Campground time can be easily divided between the pool, the playground and the brook.

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Sarah and Stephen enjoying a mid day fire. That’s Noni’s and Poppi”s trailer behind them. Note the empty lot behind their trailer. It’s strange to see that today because that’s now where we keep our Apex. This post and the next post (stay tuned) were set before we were technically considered RV’ers. Mid 2013 season next, thanks for stopping by!

Our Base Camp(ground)

BNW Sign

We bought our trailer in the early fall of 2013, I drove down to Kentucky to pick it up with the help of Linda’s cousin, Stephen. The Rubicon had no problems towing it back to New York. The Smoky Mountains were the most challenging part of the trip and at the worst I found myself climbing up a steep upgrade at 45 mph in third gear.

Thanks to Tony at Summit RV, http://www.summitrv.com, for helping us out and facilitating the purchase. We got a great price and everything was delivered as promised. They even helped us hitch up the Jeep and wire our 7 pin trailer connection.

Now we had the RV, where should we keep it? We have a small driveway and could keep it temporarily but it would block our garage and other things so we knew it wasn’t going to stay with us at our house for too long.

We actually did think ahead of time and made arrangements to be seasonal campers with Brook-N-Wood Campground up in Elizaville, New York. I know… this is a travel site, right?  I should mention that at this time we had two toddlers and a baby on the way. My in-laws were already seasonal there so it would be a great way to vacation together (read: babysitting and much needed help) while getting all  our feet wet in this camping experience.

BNW Hill

Brook-N-Wood is a great little family run campground in the Hudson Valley area of upstate New York. It’s about two hours from our house and believe me, that’s about enough time to spend in the car with very small children! When they’re not sleeping, they can be quite needy. I’m also suspicious that my middle child, Ava, might be prone to motion sickness.

BNW has a lot of things to keep small children busy. They have a beautiful heated in ground pool, a small playground that we can see from our campsite, a small brook that the kids love to play near, hayrides and some small kid-friendly trails. They also have the usual rec. center and mini golf that you see at many campgrounds.

Check their site out at:  www.brooknwood.com

My in-laws have the site right behind ours.We’re fortunate to have so much family around us and the kid’s love having them around and often visit their grandparents, Noni and Poppi.

Check out the BNW campground map below:

BNW map

So, BNW is where we’ve hung our hats for the two and a quarter seasons. We joined early fall of 2013 and previous that summer had stayed as guests in Poppi’s trailer.

I’m planning on posting on our first few seasons here and getting some pics up so stay tuned for that. Thanks for dropping by!

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