This past weekend we went camping at Oak Grove Campground with a couple friends and their kids. At first I was pretty disappointed because I was expecting something very different but over the course of the weekend, we ended up having a great time!
Booking Oak Grove Campground
There’s no question – I love camping. It’s possibly one of my favorite activities. Even when we’re just car camping, the mere act of taking a weekend (or more) sleeping on the ground and spending evenings sitting around a campfire (with or without s’mores) is one of the best feelings I can think of.
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Because of this, I always get really excited when I’m on my way to the campground. Originally, when I’d booked the site, I expected it to be up in the mountains. When I called to make the booking, I was looking for a campground up on Palomar Mountain but the one that I was hoping for was all booked up. So, I asked the lady on the phone if there were any sites near that one that we could book and she recommended Oak Grove. She said that it was right across the street…turns out it wasn’t.
As it happened, we ended up in much more of a desert campground than in a mountain campground like I’d hoped.
Camping at Oak Grove Campground
When we first got to the campsite, I was incredibly disappointed. What I was hoping would be a mountain site filled with shady trees and trails turned out to be much more of a desert campground than I ever expected – or wanted – it to be. I’ll be honest (and I’m sure my wife will attest to this) I threw a bit of a tantrum.
We got to our site and chatted a bit with our friends who had already set up their site and, once we got our tent set up calmed down a little bit. After getting the campfire going, opening a beer and lighting up a cigar, I was truly relaxed. After relaxing for a bit with Lindsey and some friends, we all turned in for the night.
The next day when our dog, Hunter, woke me up to go outside (this happens every morning we’re camping, by the way), I started our breakfast campfire and started looking around for a couple of trees to hang our hammocks between. Laying in our hammocks, by the way, was one of the things that Lindsey and I were both looking forward to for this weekend so it was a big deal for us to find a place to put them up – it took a while but I did find some good trees.
The best thing about Oak Grove Campground (at least this particular weekend), though, was that there was almost no one else in the campsite. It was amazing – as much as I love camping in campgrounds, my preference is definitely backcountry camping when there’s no one else around and I can really enjoy the sounds of nature.
All in all, I definitely recommend Oak Grove Campground. It’s relatively open but the shaded spots are pretty nice…just make sure you don’t get one of the small ones.
