Lafayette Place Campground

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Our first camping weekend of the season, May 29-31, came a week later than we had originally planned. Back in February, we booked reservations for Memorial Day Weekend at Camden Hills State Park in Camden, Maine. However, COVID-19 and states’ restrictions forced us to scrap all of our original plans for the spring and summer and instead stay local—at least for the foreseeable future. And so, feeling comfortable with New Hampshire’s Stay at Home 2.0 guidelines for state parks to open and operate at only 50% capacity, we decided to book a weekend camping trip to Lafayette Place Campground, located within Franconia Notch State Park, in Franconia, NH.

One of New Hampshire’s great draws is the beautiful part of our state known as the White Mountains, the mountain range that encompasses about a quarter of the state (and part of Maine, too!). The 6,288-foot Mount Washington looms largest, and up until 2003, the other most recognizable sight in the area was the rock formation known as the Old Man of the Mountain. Back when I was in high school, my family took a summer trip to the White Mountains, and we marveled at the mountains, the Old Man, and the Flume Gorge. That trip was one of my first (if not the first?) trips to New Hampshire; little did I know that a few years later, my parents would be making the trip north again to drop me off at my new home, the University of New Hampshire, in Durham, NH. Now, more than 25 years later, I’m still here in the 603, and the places that wowed me with their beauty and majesty years ago still have the same wow factor today. Franconia Notch State Park is one of those places. It’s nestled in the mountains, with the Pemigewasset River flowing right through—a few sites even border the river, but we weren’t lucky enough to snag one of those this time around. Lafayette Place is a great base camp for hiking and biking, but on this particular weekend, we did neither. We simply escaped to the woods and, away from cell service and wifi, tuned out to the world and into nature.

This weekend would be not only our first camping weekend of the season but also the first in this new COVID-19 world. The park was operating at only 50% capacity, and we (and park staff) were wearing masks during check in. The camp store was closed to guests, but we were able to buy wood and have it either delivered to our site or set outside the park headquarters for us to put in the van (we did that). Map in hand, we made our way to our site for the weekend, site #83. The sun was bright, and we were looking forward to setting up and getting a fire started. But first things first: setting up our new Nemo Heliopolis privacy shelter. With the concerns about COVID and G’s weakened immune system, I knew I would only feel comfortable camping this season if we could be as self-contained as possible—and that meant not relying on having to use bathroom facilities when visiting different parks. We invested in the privacy shelter (I’ll be writing up a separate review soon, so be on the lookout), and I have two words: GAME. CHANGER. For an entire weekend, I didn’t have to worry about using shared facilities or being around others. I had my trusty Luggable Loo (which, when I bought it last year, only cost $18.95) hidden inside the shelter.

We first camped at Lafayette nearly 15 years ago, when we had, for a short time, been tent campers. See, I didn’t grow up camping. In fact, I didn’t spend my first night outside in a tent until I was in my early 20s. I had envied the few stories G told me of his childhood camping trips, and, now that we were living in New Hampshire—where it seemed everybody camped and hiked—I convinced G that we needed to be campers. He humored me. We went to L.L. Bean and bought a humongous tent that, if I’m remembering correctly, could sleep six. G’s one non-negotiable was that we buy a tent large enough for him to be able to stand up and stretch out. We bought sleeping bags and pads, a camp stove, and all the rest of the “stuff.” And our camping adventures lasted perhaps a year or two. I loved it. G, not so much. Sleeping on the ground was not, shall we say, his idea of “fun.” Fast forward a decade-plus; having parted ways with the tent and all that original gear during one of our moves, and you might imagine that G wasn’t thrilled by obsession of buying a campervan so we could travel and, yes, camp. G eventually gave in (or, perhaps more aptly, I eventually wore him down), and here we are! And if you want to read more about our 2002 VW Eurovan Weekender, check out this post—and this one, this one, and this one! She’s a beauty, and we adore her.

With the Heliopolis all set, we were ready to get the weekend started. We got the fire going, got the pie irons ready, and made our first dinner, the always-classic pie iron grilled cheese sandwiches.

I’m looking forward to upping our campfire cooking game this summer, but after a long week of work this week filled with a whole lot of emotions, this weekend would be not be the weekend to start our campfire culinary adventures. However, we did try something new: cinnamon rolls over the fire. We tried two different techniques: the first, on our marshmallow roaster; the second, in the pie iron, as G was feeling ambitious. Needless to say, that particular technique did not work (see evidence in photo #4 below!)—but we’ll try again, I’m sure! But the cinnamon roll on the roaster ended up great—a little doughy in the center, just the way I like them. We skipped the frosting, and my apologies for taking a photo of a half-eaten roll, as I forgot to snap a photo until, well, it was a little late!

After Friday’s gorgeous weather, we woke Saturday to gray skies and cold temperatures. We hung out in the van a bit, I napped, and we took a walk around the campground to scope out sites for a future visit. By the late afternoon, however, the sun was back out. We hung out by the fire (sporting our newly knitted hats from my “COVID collection”) and enjoyed some campfire nachos, locally made root beer, and the season’s first s’mores.

By the time we were ready to call it quits for the night, rain drops had started to fall. Luckily, we had decided to pack up the privacy shelter so we wouldn’t have to worry about in the morning in case it ended up raining overnight; good thing we did, as it POURED. By the time we woke the next morning, it was still a bit drizzly and coooold, with temps in the 40s …still, this weekend at Lafayette Place was a great start to our summer and to camping season #2, COVID-edition. Stay tuned for more of our camping adventures!