3 Nights of Lakefront Camping in the Adirondacks | Moffitt Beach

The last time we came to Moffett Beach, our youngest was a newborn, so her and I stayed home. This is actually the first time the five of us have ever been here together, and a lot has changed since then. When the girls were little, set up was basically one of us setting up camp while the other one kept everyone occupied. Now they know the routine, they know where things go, they grab what they can, and it's all hands on deck. I think that's one of my favorite things about camping right now. The orange one. And I guess our setup has changed right along with them. We've gone from the pop-up to the Airstream, figured out a few things along the way, and definitely accumulated a lot more stuff. But the goal really hasn't changed. We're still just trying to squeeze as much as we can out of these short summers together. I reset my stopwatch so I can see just how long it took me to hang the tarp with Ridgeline. Okay. We're at Moffett Beach. It's the first time we've all been here as a family. My youngest was first born, I took the twins up here for Columbus Day weekend. It was basically snowing, they were sick, we only stayed one night, we bailed, and we have this beautiful sight. Papa and Grandma are joining us, they're actually in the sight right next to us. We'll be here for three nights. We have nothing planned, we're just going to have a good time. Keep going, keep going! We're doing a barbecue. Oh, really? Maybe we could go over there. We always try to keep dinner pretty simple the first night. By the time we get there, get backed in and everything set up, nobody really wants to make some huge meal. So tonight we did rigatoni with gianelli sausage, super simple, but exactly what we needed after setup. I forgot something again, I forgot heavy cream. Grandma is saving the day. She's got some half and half. After dinner, the lake had finally calmed down, so we decided to blow up the paddleboards. And this is pretty much how things go around here. I struggle with the simplest possible thing, Pody walks over and does it in two seconds with ease. And speaking of evolving, after years of balancing cameras on whatever random object happened to be nearby, I finally made a groundbreaking investment for the channel. A tripod. I feel like a real movie videographer with this. The world is my stage now. Sweet dreams. This is nice though. Good morning, beautiful out today. Good day for paddleboarding. Slept in. I only sleep in camping. I can't sleep till 7.30 when I'm home. Never. Players gone. Gonna get some baking going. Why is he what? He knows. A burrito, honey. Is that okay? Yeah. It's actually perfect. No. No? Small green honey. Oh no. A little too fat. Now it looks like you made that one even bigger. Smaller. Is it? Mmhmm. Okay. Let's see. Alright, that's good. Something's wrong with the Nemo. And I'm worried that if it rains, it's gonna cave. You made us go under. Yeah. And you were wrong. Yeah. And you were like, I'm positive. I'm 100% positive. Yep. You want to do this right now while the... Okay. Alright. The Nemo has definitely been put through it this summer, but somehow we keep finding ways to keep it alive. We spent the afternoon swimming, fishing, and doing pretty much a whole lot of nothing we had planned. The beach at Moffat is awesome. You've got these huge views across the lake, mountains in the distance, and we really couldn't have asked for a better day. Well, lunch is pizza from Fire Tower. Dinner that night was something completely new for us. We decided to try making pork dumplings at camp using wonton wrappers, which I'll admit was a bit ambitious. I bought ginger, and I forgot the ginger. May the odds be ever in your favor. While I was definitely skeptical about this one, especially after the absolute mess we made of the pan, but these were so good. Completely worth it. I hope I don't drink it by fairies. You're a side coffee, Amanda? Yes. You think, aren't you, man? He always finds a way up on the bed, and eventually you just give up. You're like, whatever. He comes in and just makes himself into a hot dog thing for me. Today's supposed to be a beautiful day, so we are going to hit up the beach. We'll bring the paddle board this time so the girls can practice on that. Before we go to bed, we're going to bust down the tarp, we're going to bust down the Nemo. Putting the paddle boards away dry is still nice. Then I can just put them in the camper on the way home and not feel bad. People always ask, what's the difference between the pop-up and what do you like more? At first, it was like, they're so different. When we set up, I didn't have to go inside one time. Like, there's nothing to do inside anymore, where before, that's all I did. Moving things around, pushing, pulling, up, down, pull, snap, snap, this, that. Yeah, like, well, I do have to take things out, but other than that, everything's already done. So that's the biggest thing. You can just start camping, like, faster. Even though we have, like, kind of an elaborate setup, now that we've done it a whole bunch of times, I feel like we're getting better at it. Like, what did it take us, an hour? Campsite woke up. I always try to do, like, one trip out, but it never works. Your first clunk. Is that your first, or? Oh. Has it been like that? No. You just drop it at night? In case it rains, remember? Yeah, yeah. Learned my lesson. Yep. Your table is definitely very level. Usually, you level it out. Unleveling. Well, I just leveled the JetBoil. Oh, yeah. This is the solution. Don't level the table. Yeah, what's the point, you know? Usually, you put the things under. I used them for the picnic table. Oh. It was very unlevel. Still is. I'm probably, yeah. The binoculars, yeah. All right, keep going. Poor little thing. He's caught. All right, all right. I don't like birds. There he goes. Ruby dude. Still got the net. I'm just going to give him more air. Yeah, you can put it back. Don't tell me you couldn't listen to any bird in this beautiful life. It's coming. Heavy rain? We were debating taking everything down, but we have time to do that. We're about to cook, so I don't know what you want to do. Is yellow heavy rain? No. If it's going to rain, wouldn't you want to have a shelter to eat under? I know. And cook under? The only other thing is we could put the picnic table here. OK, you don't want to do that. We ended up splitting the difference. We packed up some of the smaller stuff, like the hammock and the bike trailer, anything we knew we wouldn't need again, but decided to leave both shelters up. We're going to hurt to stake down a tent. So what are we doing here? What's our next move? Cook dinner. This time, I got everything angled the right way. So everything should be running away from the main shelter. I don't know what it's called. OK, what are the ingredients? Greek yogurt. So this was actually a smashed beef kebab with cucumber yogurt. You season the beef with turmeric and a bunch of spices. Smash it right into the pan and get it nice and crispy. And then we did a couscous and flatbread with the cucumber yogurt sauce. This one was so good. I'll link the recipe we used below. That was the mint. Whoa, wasn't expecting that. Where are the walnuts gone? That's really good. And just like that, three nights were over. It's kind of ridiculous how much work goes into getting away for a few days and how fast those few days disappear. But when we get home, unpack it all, and somehow we're already talking about where we're going next. I think that probably says everything. No, I got it. No, I never noticed. Another trip, no bears. And apparently our next trip had something a little different waiting for us. Like that's where we're going. Guys, can I go out there?