We had a spike of 7 new cases of Corona last week in our county. That’s the most we’ve seen in a day so far. It’s due to the tourists coming here. It’s a scary thing to think about. I’m glad we kept my son home from work for the summer.

It’s driving me crazy not traveling. I already missed out on a cruise and a trip to the U.K. We also cancelled a Baltic cruise for September. I did take a weekend to go to the southern part of the state, but I haven’t been out of the state since February. That’s a record for me, I think.

A friend of mine went camping in a travel trailer with her family for the 4th of July weekend to Assateague National Seashore. Her pictures are fantastic. Despite never having camped before, she’s having a great time. We have a pop-up camper we bought a few years back from someone who never used it – it just sat in their driveway. It’s been doing the same here. We opened it up yesterday and see a few things we have to deal with.

Just for kicks I started searching for openings at Assateague, and there were four nights available after Labor Day.

We debated it for a few hours yesterday and decided it was a go. My son is excited. He has the same wanderlust I do and likes seeing new places.

Assateague National Seashore has two camping areas – Oceanfront and Bayside. Nothing was open in the Oceanfront area, so I made a reservation for a site in the Bayside section. We aren’t too far from the rest rooms, which is good. They only have cold showers, but they allow pets so we can bring our dog with us. The sites do not have electric and water, although drinkable water is available at the rest rooms.

I like the fact that we will be fairly isolated. Depending on what is happening by then with the Virus, this makes me feel good. We can bring our food with us and not have to eat out anywhere. We can social distance on the beach or around the site as needed. We are completely self-reliant without having to go anywhere and make contact, unless we need more supplies. It is the best type of vacation in this environment.

Now we are figuring what we need to camp with. It’s been probably about 17 years since I tent-camped with my kids. I still have a lot of that gear, but there are certain other things we will need with the pop-up, especially considering these sites do not have electric.

Looking over the pop-up, we discovered a few things that needed to be replaced. One of the ceiling lights doesn’t work. It likely got water in it when a friend broke the skylight trying to clean off snow a few years back. It’s a special light with a power source in it for a fan that we have. We went to Camping World but weren’t successful in locating a replacement. I searched online. Although our pop-up is a Starcraft, this particular light apparently is a Coleman product. I found one on a Coleman website and ordered it. One of the sets of curtains by the beds got eaten by bugs that got in. I ordered a pressure rod and new curtains for that side. The other side is fine for the time being.

Everything else seems to be working. We haven’t checked out the awning and screen room yet. I ordered sheets to be specific to these beds that I can pack away with the camping gear. That’s what I used to do – have things that were in bins specifically for camping so there was no trying to track things down when we went camping. It was just load these into the mini-van we had at the time and go.

I’m looking forward to this mini-vacation and finally getting a chance to camp in our pop-up. It will be something we haven’t done and also something of a learning experience as to what works and what doesn’t camping in the pop-up versus having tent-camped. I’m also a good bit older than I was back then.

I am so looking forward to the wild horses, though. That will be a unique experience.