Jellystone Tabor City: Take 2

Jellystone at Tabor City has quickly become one of our favorite places.  We fell in love the first time we went back in March. When I saw on their Facebook page that the upcoming weekend was "Hero's Weekend" we jumped on the chance to go again, only this time for half off since my husband totes a badge. We had not planned on another camping trip until July but some deals just can't be passed up. The kids were beyond excited to go fishing again in the stocked ponds and hoped that it would be warm enough in May to swim in the pool.

I reserved what I thought to be the perfect location, #83. Click here to see a map (Jellystone Tabor City Map). Not too far from the bathhouse, close to the pools and right next to the basketball court and jump pillow. With kids this seemed to be the perfect spot. We rented a golf cart this time so it was quicker to get too and from the ponds for fishing. We broke the rules a little and let our 8 year old drive the golf cart a few times. Got a tongue lashing from the lady at the ranger station when we checked out for that. Lesson learned!

The water in the pools was warm enough to swim this time and with not many people there that weekend it wasn't crowded. The boys enjoyed riding their bikes around the bike track and around the camp ground. The jump pillow had just opened that weekend but the kids weren't super thrilled with it. It was fun for a few minutes but they were more interested in fishing and swimming.   Another highlight of the weekend was gem mining. For $7 each kid gets a bag that has gems, fossils, rocks, shark teeth and an arrow head. The boys especially loved this! I mean, what boy doesn't want a real arrow head and a bunch of gems!

Taylor's 9th birthday is in July so we're planning a trip back for that weekend. YAY!  Another little perk we just discovered is that there is a geocache there too!! SCORE!

Sunset over the big pond is just too amazing!

"Super Moon" weekend. PERFECT!

I caught a catfish :)

She'll pose with and for anything.

Booboo's arrowhead

Our favorite part...relaxing by the fire!

Jump pillow action. That thing gets a little hot so beware.

Geocaching fail

Ok it wasn't a complete fail but it was a rough day. I dropped off the two little ones at Nana's house to swim. Taylor and I took off to go treasure hunting. First, I thought I'd start off with how we got started. The app on my iPhone has a feature that you can search to the closest caches. It's pretty simple even for me who is a little bit of a techno-idiot. There are a few things on each listing that help to find the cache. First there is the title. One of the caches we found today was called "Bob's Sinkhole". What we would be looking for was a large sink hole right off of a nature trail not too far from our house. Another thing we use on the app is the GPS. It takes you within a few feet of where you are going. There are different types of maps and a compass to help navigate right to the cache. There is a rating system for level of difficulty to find and the difficulty of the terrain. It also tells how big the item is that you'll be looking for. Yesterday we found a film canister, a small plastic container and today we found a reusable water bottle. Each listing also has a description, a hint (sometimes) and the most recent date someone has found it. 

All together we attempted to find 6 today. Bob's Sinkhole was a success because how can we miss a gigantic hole in the ground that has a sign in front of it that says "Bob's Sink Hole". The nature trail we were on had several. Some as far as a half mile into the woods. I wasn't completely comfortable going that far in the woods not only because I'm a scaredy cat of creepy crawlies but also because it was just me, my 8 year old and my phone. There weren't any other cars in the parking lot when we got there so we were alone in the woods. Not my idea of fun. We agreed to go try a different location.

We moved on and didn't find anything at the next couple we went to.  Discouraged, we thought we'd try one more. It was at the park, near the water tower. Taylor decided to stay in the air conditioned car and I trekked in the little patch of woods to find a water bottle full of goodies. It had a note pad for us to sign in, a pencil, a few silly bands, a sticker and a little sparkly trinket box. We didn't take anything but left a stone from one of our camping gem mining adventures and placed the bottle back in it's place. So 2 out of 6 wasn't a complete failure but not what we had hoped for either. We'll be trying again soon. There are so many in our area.

Here's what I've learned so far...

• Take bug spray
• Wear sneakers (no flip flops)
• Long pants are probably best but who am I kidding? We're in the south and it's June!
• Take a pen
• Have your phone fully charged
• Take water
• Have anti-itch cream on hand at home
• Wear sunblock

I'm sure our list will get longer as we get more experienced. This was only our second trip out and there is a bunch to learn.

Until next time, Happy Hunting!

The lonely nature trail that Chicken Little and Chicken Big decided against.



Checking out the turtle in the sink hole.



At Bob's Sink Hole

Geocaching



I'm all about some cheap, fun entertainment that doesn't include sitting in front of a TV so when I came across a website about geocaching I knew it was perfect for us. I signed up for the premium membership which was $10 for three months which is perfect for summer and isn't a long term commitment in case we don't love it. I also downloaded the mobile app on my iphone so that we could search "on the fly". So here's the deal in a nutshell...

People around the world have hidden different things, often times little plastic containers so that they hold up in the elements and wild animals. They plot the coordinates on the website and give it a clever name and maybe a hint. So today I decided to go on my first hunt alone. I wanted to be sure there was something to find before lugging all three kids to find something that didn't exist. The mobile app took me right to it! It was a tiny little film canister (remember those?) hidden at the tennis courts of a local public park. We visit this park all the time. Had no clue there was hidden treasure. I wrote our geocaching name on the little slip of paper and tucked it back into it's hiding place. In case you need more explanation here's a little geocaching 101. So cool! I was confident the kids would love it too.



See that little silver thing above Kenly's head? That is what we searched the woods for!



Later on I got all the kids and their friend and headed out to find more. The football field where the boys play had one that was a little more hard to find. I think it was supposed to be hanging from a branch but it was on the ground in a little patch of woods by the field. It didn't matter, the kids were hooked! Taylor was begging to go find more. I am really shocked at how many there are in our little town alone.

Next was the Boy Scout hut. This was super cool because the boy scouts had put a little plastic box in the woods by their scout hut. They had taped camouflauge tape on the box and had put little treasures in the box. The note said if you take something from the box to leave something of equal or greater value. We weren't prepared to leave anything so we put it back the way we found it.



There was only one out of five that we couldn't find. They didn't feel ripped off at that one either though since there was a deer skull on the ground. Kenly and I were a little grossed out but the boys thought it was cool.



Now we are all excited about going tomorrow!




And here's a little collection of our adventure...

Even Little Ms. Priss liked looking for hidden treasure



I promise were having more fun than this picture says




Looking...



Treasure!!!

EEEEWWWWW!!! but he thought it was cool.

This one was tricky to find because we looked all over the ground. Didn't think to look up!

This beats sitting inside any day!!