Building Our Dream Campground: Day One | Cryptid Cabins and Camping

Campground Beginnings

Hey guys!

If you've found your way here, welcome! We're so glad you're joining us at the beginning of this adventure. Settle in, and I’ll tell you a bit about our life here and what our plans are for our little patch of dirt in “Almost Heaven,” West Virginia.

14 years ago, when Carl and I got together, we dreamed of one day owning a campground or small roadside motel where we could live out our sustainable homestead dreams. This was before the tiny house craze hit and years before Schitt's Creek made boutique motels swanky instead of skanky. Carl brought years of maintenance and construction experience to the table. I brought a willingness to learn and learned that I had a knack for construction work. Together, we spent the next several years building our remodeling business and a life centered around the outdoors. We worked in (and hiked all over) Charleston for two of those years and then moved everything to my hometown of Point Pleasant.  

During those years, we remodeled two older mobile homes, learning along the way that we genuinely enjoyed living with less. We became experts at stretching a budget, hunting down clearance materials, and turning dated spaces into homes we loved. Looking back, those little projects were unknowingly preparing us for what came next. 

Life happened, and unexpected opportunities arose. We needed an extra bedroom for my stepdaughter to move to WV, and we had the opportunity to purchase the property next to my parents’. The property comprises 14 acres with approximately 13 acres being hilly and wooded. It includes a 3-bedroom house, a low field and a creek. The house needed finishing when we moved in, which we mostly completed, and it has served us well for the past 4 years. But then we realized two things: now that our girl is 18 we no longer use most of the house, and we had lost sight of our dream to live a smaller, slower, and more sustainable life on our own campground. We looked around one day and it occurred to us we already had everything we'd dreamed about - a wooded hillside, a creek, open fields, and enough room to build the kind of place we'd talked about for years.  We knew we were on the edge of something that felt big, and all we had to do was leap.  

So we did what any normal, middle-aged people would do. We decided to downsize our lives into a custom tiny house in the low field. But that’s going to take some time, so until then we are going to move into an 8x30 pull-behind camper. That camper is sitting just across the field from where our tiny house will eventually stand. It's older, a little rough around the edges, and definitely going to test our patience - but that's exactly why we're excited about it. Tools and know-how aren’t a concern we have with this project, and we are finally ready to take our first step.  

The plan is that by the time we are settled into our tiny house, we'll have at least three campsites tucked among the trees, connected by two to three miles of wooded hiking trails. And, hopefully, a couple children's books available in the shops on Main Street.

Living around here, it's hard to ignore the stories. Point Pleasant is, after all, the home of the legendary Mothman. Our wooded hillsides, quiet creek, and the sense of wonder this property inspires became the foundation for a children's book series I've been writing, set right here on our little patch of dirt. It only seemed fitting that our campground would carry that same spirit of curiosity and adventure under the name Cryptid Cabins. We'll share more about the books, the campground's name, and the local legends that inspired them in a future post

This blog is where we'll share every step of the journey - the victories, the mistakes, the budget-friendly projects, and everything we're learning along the way. Whether you're here for campground ideas, tiny living inspiration, or just enjoy watching a big dream come together one weekend at a time, we're glad you've joined us. 

Today marks one of our very first steps toward making our dream a reality. It's time to move the camper into what will become its (semi) permanent home. It's not glamorous, and it's definitely not HGTV-worthy (yet), but every big dream has a Day One. This is ours. 

Moving the Camper

Even though we only made the decision to move into the camper a few weeks ago, it somehow feels like this day has been years in the making. After talking about this dream for so long, it was so exciting to finally stop planning and start doing. We popped everything open to air it out, crossed our fingers that everything still worked after sitting for a while, and were relieved to find that it did. With everything secured and ready to roll, there was only one thing left to do. 

We fired up the tractor.

Moving Dirt

Carl spent the better part of the morning scraping and leveling the spot for the camper. He climbed on and off the tractor at least a dozen times - backing up to scrape a little here, digging a little there, then hopping off again to stand back and see how it looked. Every pass of the tractor moved us one step closer to the life we've dreamed about for so many years.

We still have plenty left to do. Eventually, we'll have a load of gravel delivered to create a proper base, skirting of some sort will have to go on before winter, and we are already talking about a deck and fenced yard for our dogs.  But for today, we are celebrating this bit of progress.  

We chose this location carefully. It's shaded for most of the day, which should help us live a little more comfortably (and hopefully a little more efficiently) during our time in the camper. It's also close to the utilities, so we'll only need to run water and electricity about 100 feet from the house. Even in its unfinished state, I can already picture myself sitting on a little front deck, coffee in hand, looking across the field toward the creek while the morning wakes up around us. 

Leveled Up, Are we a Campground yet?

We still have plenty of work ahead of us, but now that the camper is in its final(ish) location, the fun can really begin. First, we'll extend the slide-outs, give it a much-needed scrub inside and out, and see exactly what we're working with. From there we'll run water and electric down the hill, figure out which appliances still have some life left in them (and which ones don't), tackle any structural repairs, and finally begin the budget-friendly remodel we've been dreaming up.

As we stood there at the end of the day - sweaty, covered in dirt, and more than a little tired - it was easy to picture what this little campsite could become. Birds sang in the trees all day, bees hummed in the wildflowers on the hillside, and a steady breeze drifted through the leaves above us. It was one of those days that quietly reassures us we are exactly where we’re supposed to be.

The outside might still look like an ordinary old camper, but don't let it fool you. We've got some pretty creative ideas cookin' for the inside.  Next time, we'll take you inside for the official "before" tour and share our vision for turning this old camper into a cozy little home while we build the tiny house just across the field. 

Thanks for following along as we take our very first steps toward this dream. We hope you'll stick around. There are plenty of projects, plenty of lessons to learn, and I'm sure more than a few unexpected surprises waiting for us along the way. 

Our first project down, a million more to go.

Until next time,

LaNae