Memorable 10th Camp KV

The 10th Camp KV at Del Norte Group Campsite in Lopez Lake, Arroyo Grande was memorable in various ways. Many of us would remember it as the camping in which we experienced rain for the first time. Jayesh and Bhavini would remember it as an adventurous camping in which they had to sleep in the car due to the rain and Poonam will remember it for the water that seeped thru the floor of the tent.

Overall the tents held up pretty nicely in the rain and that was a surprise to me. Its good that we decided to go south this time since our friends who had gone to Calaveras Big Trees Park (9th Camp KV) had to come back in the afternoon due to rain + snow. At least we could finish our camping.

Apart from the weather on Sat night it was one great camping. Even the rain did provide some thing different as Jaikit observed.

It was the first time that we obtained a group campsite and the difference showed. The kids could play freely and we had a whole chunk of land to ourselves. And a 4 level site ensured everyone had a view of the lake. 🙂 . IMHO this was the best site that we had till now.
We should always try for a group campsite wherever possible.

The beach area was walking distance from the site, there was electricity on the site, and the water park was good fun too. There were no creepy bugs or bees in general. Deers came by to visit us often. The sites were not dusty and the central food area was almost as perfect as anyone can dream of. Only the showers were a bit far away but this did not bother us too much.

Menu wise we managed to have 5 group food sessions and the food was yummy and had good variety (pav bhaji, thepala, bhel). Our task force this time consisted of Dimple, Bhavini, Neelam, Nitul and myself. Dimple-Bhavini-Neelam did the estimations for various food items and it was a treat to watch them at work. They analyzed and reanalyzed various options for food, got quotes from various folks, and chose the best vendors and stores which would work out economical for our group. Thanks to the “Tri-deviyan” for the food estimation part. 🙂

Also thanks to all the volunteers who went above and beyond and chose multiple things to prepare or buy from the stores. Help was available in plenty from various quarters and this made CampKV a wonderful community supported event.

Bhavini had the creative idea to do something special for the 10th anniversary of camping and as a result the Camp KV T-shirt was born. Thanks to Komal for the great design and thanks to Bhavini and Dimple for getting quotes from multiple places for the T-shirts.

This camping we managed to play some organized group games (dog-bone, long -jump, volleyball, cricket, french cricket, musical chairs, housie, queen of sheeba, guess the sequence, yes-sir/no-sir, memory game, etc). And that brought the group closer together. Some folks managed to bike around the park, some managed to walk around the park and some took a nice hike on the hillside. So we had a good mix of group activity and individual time as well. Thanks to all those who helped prepare the games.

All food sessions went off nicely and this is a testament to the hard working volunteers who were responsible for each session. Everyone got a chance to help and they took full advantage of it and provided the best service. :-). A big cheer for all the volunteers during different sessions.

The campfire could have been a bit better organized and this is one area where we have always been weak. Folks need to prepare something specific for the campfire. And we need a co-ordinator who will control the activities during campfire.

The water park was fun-fun-fun and the water slides were the longest that anyone had ever been in (30-40 seconds). Toddlers were also comfortable in their kiddie pools and they enjoyed their kiddie slides to the max. The lake was nice too and young kids had fun playing with sand near the lake.

A special thanks to the families that stayed till the very end of camping and thus helped cleaning at the end of camping. Clean up took a lot of time since there were things to distribute and big campsite to clean. We really appreciate the help that we got towards the end of camping.
There were some lost and found items and I hope they find their way back to the respective owners.

Thankfully we had no major injuries. Only 2 minor ones (Komal in water park and Romil during long jump). We did not have Dr. Smita Gala with us this time and this was a major worry for us. :-).

The Escondido group Campsite which was next to ours is also a great site and we should consider that for the future. This was the first camping where we had to do walkup registration – “hotel style”. Usually there is one small booth and we do drive-thru registration. Registration was also smooth since we had the group campsite.

I hope everyone increased their facebook friends count due to this camping trip. :-). I already had most of the campers on my fb list. :-). So no increase for me.

In the end the 10th KV camping proved very memorable for our family and we had a great time. The company was awesome and we cherish the time that we spent with each one of you.