Family vacations can get expensive, especially on the east coast. The following is a list of family and budget friendly places you should visit.
1. National Naval Aviation Museum
This museum is located on an air force base in Pensacola Florida. Due to it being an active military site there is some security to go through before getting inside. It is well worth it though. The museum is huge. You will see airplanes from all over the world and spanning through time. Also make sure to get on the trolley tour of the back lot, where you will see some of the planes they can’t fit inside the museum. Kids will love getting inside some of the planes, the best part is that it’s free.
Sometimes we make camp and something unexpected happens. Well at Oregon Inlet Campground we ran into some strong winds. Now we have had strong winds before, like in New Mexico when the wind damaged our wheel skirting, but this was some really powerful wind. One night it blew so hard it damaged our window! Luckily we are pretty handy at this point and we were able to fix it ourselves in the morning. I have heard of the saying when life hands you lemons make lemon-aid, so when we were faced with strong winds we decided to go fly a kite. We brought a kite along with us from Nevada and had carried it to twenty-five states without using it. This was the opportunity we had been looking for, strong winds and sandy beaches for the kids to crash it into because let’s face it you gotta crash a few times to really learn how to fly. That’s 
what the Wright Brothers did and it worked out pretty well for them, but I digress and will get to those guys in a minute. The look of joy on the kids face as the kite took flight and they were the ones controlling it was priceless. Yes even though it was windy we had a great time visiting the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
It’s always nice pulling into a new camp. Getting there means we’re home (since we take our house wherever we go) and it’s nice to feel at home no matter where we are. Some of the places we stay are definitely better than others and the Holly Point Recreation Area on Falls Lake, near Raleigh, NC, was a welcome site when we arrived. The sites were all pretty long, lots of trees made them very private, we had water and power hook-ups plus a nice walking trail to the playground which the kids loved. The campground was very quiet and the bathrooms were maintained. We liked that we could collect the dead wood here and have a campfire. I prefer staying in sites that are on the rustic side and have some privacy even if it means not having some amenities. Occasionally, we have to stay at places that are a little less camping and more on the resort side like when we need some amenities such as laundry or Wi-Fi. It was nice staying at Holly Point for its rustic camping feel as well as its proximity to the city. Once we arrive at our site, get the trailer set up, and the slides out, I always like to welcome everyone home.
So first off many apologies for not having some pictures of our great camp near Winston-Salem, NC. When we pulled into the camp it was raining for the first two days and the nice days saw us so busy that we simply forgot to snap any photos. The reason I bring this up is because we stayed at a lovely spot called Tanglewood RV. When we left the freeway and Sarah said it was only a few turns to get to the camp, I must admit that I was worried about road noise. Two turns later and a drive into the camp didn’t do much to ease my worries. We checked in and headed to camp, which was down another long driveway to even enter the camp. After we set up camp I perked up my ear to see if I was going to be bothered by road noise and to my surprise I heard nothing. It turned out to be a wonderful quiet camp in the woods. The sites were not very level, but we have dealt with that so many times over the last year that it didn’t matter especially with our new slide supports (yes I really do love those things). Best of all the park had good Wi-Fi which allowed us to post some articles and send family pictures, which is something we always love.
I was born and raised in the mountains and have always felt a connection to them.
