Come Camp With Me! Pocahontas State Park - January 2025

Last week I went on a camping trip to Pocahontas State Park in Virginia, and while I was there I decided it would be fun to share some of my trip with you. As part of This New Chapter, getting out in nature and away from my house has really helped improve my mood and mental health, so I thought I would take you all along for the ride as well and share a little bit of that magical naturey healing.

Many of the local parks are closed down for the season, but luckily Pocahontas has year-round camping and it isn't too far of a drive, so that's where I decided to have my first cold weather camping trip. Now I say "cold weather" as a coastal southerner who lives in a city that literally shuts down if we get even half an inch of snow. As you can see in the picture above, the day I arrived and setup it was just warm enough for me to wear a tshirt, especially with the heat generated from setting the tent up. Little did I realize how much the temperatures were going to drop once the sun went down! I really enjoy a lot of 60s/70s aesthetics, and most of my camping gear fits the vibe. I love fostering feelings of outdoorsy nostalgia when I'm camping, and with a barrage of burgundies, browns, and forest greens it's easy to feel like I'm stepping back in time when I'm out there. 

This was my first visit to Pocahontas State Park. I took my usual camping gear:

• 10 person tent a.k.a. enough room for one Hylan Cow and maybe a guest if you bring snacks
• Snacks
• My sleeping pad and cotton sleeping bag because I'm the princess from The Princess and The Pea when it comes to my sleeping setup
• Retro aluminum folding lawn chairs
• My strumstick
• Christmas lights so that I feel magical and also so it's not scary when it gets dark
• Scary movies on my phone to watch alone once it gets pitch black and quiet

I was a little disappointed when I pulled up to my campsite as the sites all felt VERY open and exposed to each other. It turned out to be fine as there were very few campers this time of year so my "neighborhood" of the campground was quite empty, but you'll be seeing a lot of your neighbors at most of the sites here. It's a very clean and peaceful park though, and since the camping area is in the middle of a BIG state park, there's no outside noise like highway traffic or distant construction. Next time I'll take more pictures of my setup, but I didn't think about sharing this trip here on the blog until after I was already there a while.

I hit my first hiccup almost immediately. I had just finished staking my tent and rainfly down when I realized that my extension cord was about 6 feet too short to reach the electric hookup! I had to unstake everything and wiggle-walk my tent to the very edge of the camping pad and re-stake everything. I don't usually rely too much on electricity when I'm camping, but I do like to have the convenience of a plug inside the tent.

After that I had worked up an appetite, so I pulled out some food for first dinner. I brought a tin of canned mackerel that's been sitting in my pantry for several weeks. I bought them because I was always curious to see what canned sardines/fish looked and tasted like, but the idea of packed slivers of fish hadn't been appetizing enough for me to open them. Turns out the Mediterranean style mackerel was actually two large chunks of boneless meat, and surprisingly tasty! The fish smell did seem to linger quite a bit on everything it touched though, so I may not add that to my regular outdoor dining.

Next was time to sit around the campfire! The light was just beginning to fade and there was a definite chill at this point, so I set up a couple of logs in the fire ring to make a small fire. I am admittedly woefully under-educated when it comes to survival skills, so my first attempt was... not successful. 

I was too tired to fiddle with it, so instead I waited until it was dark (and BOY was it dark!) and took quite a long stroll around the campground to look at the stars. It was so wonderful to see the stars so brightly and clearly! There's something so immediately healing and grounding to stare up at them twinkling in a clear, dark night sky. I ate second dinner (summer sausage, cheddar cheese, and seed bread) and settled in for the night. Between the fully belly, the excitement of beginning a new camping trip, and all the warmth generated from briskly walking around, I was all ready to tuck myself into bed and drift into slumber. I fell asleep pretty quickly, but that night air was cold. 

I briefly woke up to a pack of coyotes yipping close by during the night, as well as occasional blasts of freezing air when I shifted and accidentally let air into the sleeping bag. I woke up very hungry but it was probably 20 minutes or so before I could force myself out of the sleeping bag and into the cold. I fired up the ol' Coleman camping stove and had myself a nice egg sandwich.

Day 2 of camping was mostly walking some of the many miles of hiking trails at Pocahontas.

The trails were well maintained and the weather was only a bit chilly, so I took my time and just stayed on some of the shorter and easier trails for more of a calming, meditative hike. There were barely any people, so it was easy to get lost in the foresty feelings. From what I saw as I walked the trails, it seems like canoeing/kayaking here would be very peaceful on the river.

Not shockingly at all, I only made it 15 minutes or so before I couldn't wait any longer and had to open my snacks. 

While the foliage was rather sparse, it did make it very easy to spot lots of different types of fungus and mushrooms growing along the trails. I even found a bunch of those neat round ones that are filled with spores that look like smoke when you touch them! Nature's alternative to popping bubble wrap, I say. Always happy to empty some balls and spread that seed. Erm, or something like that...

 

Normally when I'm out in nature I like to disconnect from technology, but I realized that sometimes it can actually enhance the experience quite a bit. I put on an audiobook about Welsh fairies and folklore for a perfect backtrack as I walked through the woods learning about Gwyn ap Nudd. 

I did have a moment of validation and silent camaraderie with a couple who passed me on their bikes as I overheard their conversation. "We could do 91, that would be good. 94, maybe. I think 94 will be the best.

94 what? They kept talking about numbers and which ones they liked and didn't like, and eventually I realized they were talking about specific campsites and which ones they planned on reserving next time they came back. The last time I went camping I walked around and made notes about which sites I wanted to try, which ones were private, which ones were too close to the road, etc. I thought maybe I was being too picky, but between this couple and another conversation a week or so later with a friend, I realized that a lot of campers do it. 

Back at the campsite I was ready for some grub, and ramen noodles with egg was on the menu. It was during this meal that I learned a valuable and surprising lesson: apparently it's very, very possible to burn food even in a pot of water! Also that my camping fork and spoon are most definitely not heatproof enough to use as cooking utensils. I cracked a couple of eggs into my steel pot full of water, and then placed the ramen brick on top. I kept hearing a weird fizzling sound and thought it was just the water heating up, but apparently the eggs sank down and started burning on the bottom of the pan. "I'll fix this right up!" I said, as I proceeded to not fix things at all. I used my (quite hard and sturdy, actually) plastic fork to try to scrape the eggs around and get everything mixed, but when I pulled it out the fork had melted sideways and the edges of the tines were scuffed. I managed to reheat them again in the ramen and almost bend them back into shape, but I'll be taking metal utensils with me from now on!

After dinner it was time to make another attempt at a campfire, and I'm proud to say it was a success!

I used one of those color packs for a magical touch. I pulled out my strumstick and played and sang for 30 minutes or so. Just like the day before, around 4pm or so the campground got EERILY quiet. I was a little stressed playing strumstick because I felt like everybody could hear every fumbled chord or off-key note I sang, but it was a great feeling to sit in the warmth of a rainbow fire and sing some old fashioned songs as the sun set.

Once it got dark and the embers died out, it was time to head to the bathrooms to brush my teeth and get ready for bed. I did have to laugh at the company name on the inside of the stall doors, though 😆

The bathrooms themselves are lit, but there are absolutely no street lights or anything lighting the campground roads and walkways, so it was dark. Since the sky was clear, I could juuust barely see my way enough to walk without a light. There was almost something Eldritch about walking straight into the pitch black darkness, and only the silhouette of the surrounding treetops giving enough of a shape to discern where the road generally lay.

I had a NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE when I was walking to the bathroom and thought I saw movement so I turned my flashlight on. Me and a raccoon were both walking directly into each other's path, albeit still about 20-30ft away. I was a bit startled to suddenly see an animal so close in the dark, but the raccoon turned and did the goofiest little run-waddle away so it dissipated the tension.

Night number two was a bit more comfortable back at the tent, since I covered me and the sleeping bag with an extra warm blanket I had brought, and threw a thick folded flannel sheet over my head to stop the cold drafts of air on my face and neck. Breakfast was another tasty egg sandwich, and then it was time to start packing up.

I had a brief medical emergency when I realized I had a splinter on my finger, luckily I was able to perform life-saving emergency medical techniques on myself before I had to be airlifted out.

Packing out was fairly easy as I like to keep all my camping equipment in a large storage tub for easy packing, although the tent did put up a bit of fight to get back in the carrying bag. It was a very pleasant and much needed trip, and I certainly soaked up as much serenity and peace as a I could get. I was ready to get home though, and to sleep in a warm, dry house again. On the drive back home I stopped at a couple little antique malls and grabbed a few jigsaw puzzles, and then I was back home before I knew it.

It's been about a week now since I've been back, and I'm already raring to go camping again. Lots of dehydrated recipes I want to try, more campfire songs to learn, more animal sounds to try to learn. Next time I'll take some more pictures or videos, and I'll start taking you all along for my camping trips as well.

Until the next adventure!