The Holidays without family can be a little lonesome, so we decided to go tent camping. We wanted to explore Florida, but we didn’t want to haul behind our 39’ 5th wheel when we only planned to be gone a night or two.
We also didn’t want to pay the expense of getting a pet friendly motel room and I didn’t want to spend the night sleeping in the cab of the truck.
Which left us with only one option, borrowing a tent.
Now, one of the reasons we bought our first camper two years ago was I claimed I was too old for tent camping.
The getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom was still a disadvantage, but the upside was I have a Fitbit and it was a lot easier to get all my steps.
The other complaint I had was sleeping on the ground. Previously when we tented we had an eight inch air mattress when we went to bed, but we always woke up on a five inch air mattress.
But, time has a way of diminishing the bad times, so with the excitement of a child on Christmas Day, we packed up the cab of the truck with the borrowed tent and a whole lot more. We did save enough space in the backseat for Stella.

First stop, Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area. Located at Flagler Beach. We made reservations for Christmas night and we were able to get a site on the beach. We have heard this is a busy park and the sites fill up quickly. The park was very clean, including the restrooms and showers. We would definitely come back to this park.
Dogs are not allowed on the beach at Florida State Parks, but there was a walk way at the end of the campsite that led down to the public beach where dogs are allowed.
The sound of the waves crashing on the beach and the wind rattling the palm leaves was louder than I remembered and when the sunset we crawled into our tent and the volume increased, but a night of restless sleep was well worth the price.