I grew up going camping every summer, in great part because it was a fairly cheap way of going on vacation. Sadly, I haven’t gone camping much in recent years. The idea of going with three small kids seemed a bit intimidating so I deserted my younger two and took just my six-year-old to go camping with friends. I saw no reason to drive any great distance away since the idea was to enjoy the camping itself. So we went to Little Bennett Campground in Clarksburg, MD. It’s run by Montgomery County Department of Parks.
The campground is very nice. It is fairly inexpensive at $21/night and there is no minimum 2-night stay that some campgrounds have. We reserved a site near the bathroom since it’s annoying to have to trek a 1/4 mile to go the bathroom in the middle of the night. The bathrooms were clean and the shower area and individual showers were curtained off to allow privacy. The campsite had a large, flat tent pad, a fire ring with a metal grill you could flip over the fire to cook, a separate barbecue, a lantern post, and a picnic table, as well as space for two vehicles to park. And there was a decent amount of space between campsites.
We were only camping overnight, arriving on a Saturday afternoon, checking out on Sunday. It took us about an hour to set up the tent, including a little time wasted by doing things in the wrong order since we hadn’t found the instructions yet. Afterwards we went to the Nature Room in the Activity Center where the kids got to play with some snake skins and turtle shells. It was also nice to go into the air conditioning for a few minutes. There are some special events and activities that take place there. But considering we were only camping overnight, we figured the kids could skip watching a movie since they can do that anytime.
For dinner, we roasted hot dogs over the open fire and later on roasted marshmallows and had those wonderful things known as s’mores. My child actually skipped the marshmallows in favor of straight chocolate but hey, that’s good stuff too. All that sugar kept the kids up late while we told stories and sang songs around the fire. The morning started early which it always seems to do when camping. We made a breakfast of pancakes and bacon over the propane camping stove. I love mine. I remember the kerosene stove we had when I was growing up. You had to pressurize the gas so you’d have to keep pumping for what seemed like forever before you could actually start cooking. With the propane, you just hook it up and you’re good to go.
Little Bennett Regional Park has a number of trails, some of which lead to historic sites. One thing we saw was the Hyattstown Mill which displayed information on a number of mills that used to operate all over Montgomery County. From there, we walked on with our destination being the Montgomery Chapel Cemetery. Somehow we never saw it although we would swear we followed the map correctly. Oh well. At least we got our exercise and saw a little wildlife (a deer) and some not so wildlife (horses along the trail).
If we go again, I think we’ll stay two nights. It was quite a bit of prep work for just one night but it was fun.
One slight drawback is that there isn’t any swimming in the campground. No pool or lake or anything. But other than that…
