Henry Cowell State Park
Camp Review
Our tent site, #42, was huge! It had enough space for probably 5-6 eight-people tents.
The bathrooms were clean and well-stocked.
The two spots that the girls picked out for their tents had shade throughout most of the day.
The picnic table, however, was only shaded in the early morning and was in full sun the rest of the day.
The site also came with a well-functioning bear locker (for use against squirrels and rats) and an iron fire pit with a removable grill on top.
There was space for parking two cars with the rear spot being sloped. The first 2/3 of the parking space was perfectly flat.
The site had decent privacy from all but one neighboring site due to the prodigious amount of trees and bushes.
The check-in time is 2 PM (standard) while their check-out time is 12 PM (the latest I’ve seen at a campsite).
The Saito family stayed at site #10, which was smaller but nestled among trees for increased privacy.
What I Learned
The girls were worried about camping by themselves (in their own tents), but they did great. The only hiccup was that in the morning, Anna had a scare with a bug that crawled on the outside of her tent, but I think it was just extra scary for her because of its size and the fact that she hadn’t seen a bug and how it looks from the bottom. On the plus side, they had a great time playing in the tent with their friends with no adults around.
Our three-person tent needs to be repaired. The zipper seemed to be on its last legs, with each zip taking tons of force and it feeling the opposite of smooth. I just found a YouTube video detailing how to fix zippers, so at least it seems repairable.
Unlike remote camping spots, it seems that many campers here are not aware of simple camping etiquette. This was the second time that we camped here where fellow campers strolled through our campsite as if we were not present. I never had this happen at any other campground, though I’m sure it happens all the time.
Friends
The Saito family accompanied us on this trip. It was so lovely camping with them again! They cooked us a yummy garlic shrimp AND Korean short rib dinner after we came back from Cable Car Beach. For breakfast, we cooked them a bacon-tomato sandwich on sourdough and/or a parfait. The Prives family was supposed to come too, but they fell ill. :(
What Happened?
For this year’s camping trip with the Saito and Prives family, we decided to camp at a local place instead of somewhere several hours away, where bad traffic could ruin much of the fun about a getaway. We settled on Henry Cowell State Park because it is very kid-friendly and so close. It’s only 40 minutes or so when there is no traffic. Unfortunately, the Prives family fell ill, so they could not join us; the Saito family was feeling tired due to travel, so we decided to camp a single night.
We arrived in the early afternoon at Henry Cowell and we immediately set up the tents, met up at our campsite, and started hiking to Cable Car Beach as it was pretty warm. When we came back from our river foray, we cleaned up and headed over to the Saito campsite with our camping chairs, roasting sticks, rice cooker, and the battery for cooking said rice. When we arrived, Ryo had already started cooking his perfected garlic shrimp dish and it smelled oh so good. I unfortunately ran back with Anna to get some sweaters, but when we got back, it just meant that the shrimp was done and so was the salad. The salad featured tomatoes that they had grown in their backyard and it was just the perfect tomatoes—sweet with just the tiniest bit of tartness. As we ate and chatted, the rice finished cooking and the short ribs were served. It was an amazing meal where I probably over-ate, but it was worth it given how yummy everything was.
We then started a fire and sat around that while we talked. After the food in our stomachs settled down a bit, we roasted marshmallows and hotlinks to eat. Mona came up with an ingenious idea to combine the roasted marshmallows with the campfire popcorn that Ryo had cooked—she seemed to really enjoy this new-to-me concoction! At around 10:30 PM, we headed back as quietly as we could and retired for the night after brushing our teeth.
The next morning, Anna and I woke up around 8 AM. Anna had woken up due to the bug that scared her, which meant that she and I got the campsite going while others slowly woke up. At around 9, the Saitos came over and we made breakfast—a sourdough bacon-tomato sandwich and fruit parfait.
The girls had a great time playing together in their tents while the adults cleaned up their respective campsites. Too soon, our time was up and we had to drive home. It was such a short and fun trip with some amazing people and I really feel like we squeezed all that we could from a one-night camping trip.