Eureka Sunrise 6 Review

Our old Eureka tent has a footprint of about 11'x7' which we finally outgrew. Really our 30" mats were just too wide to fit five across.

When researching new tents online, I started looking at 8 person tents and felt they were all huge and mostly expensive. Our old tent was rated for seven people, so I figured I had to look higher. Finally I calculated what we might need and broadened my searches. 

The Eureka Sunrise 6 has an 11' x 11' footprint.  I calculated that while we couldn't fit five mats together, we could easily have four together and have one going the other way.

This tent is just like our other in terms of basic shape and set up. It's a bit taller, which I didn't find necessary, but overall the features are very nice. 

The first time I set it up with a four year old which is essentially by myself and it worked fine.  The fly is high up, so it took me a couple tries on a windy day, but at last I succeeded. I sealed all our seams and became familiar with the nice features such as netted compartments everywhere, great windows and air flow.

At the campground, everyone helped set up the tent and it was even easier. I can see how it might be a struggle on a very windy hilltop without at least two adults, but I'm sure it would work out, staking along the way as necessary. 

We did have rain, in fact all night on and off. Everyone stayed dry and we still had plenty of air flow too. Night two was a chilly night and we left the windows open some again. I think due to the higher ceiling, it kept us cooler, but that will be helpful on hot summer nights. Also, I could have closed up the windows more to keep the heat in better. 

We had space for each of our duffle bags and a corner for shoes.

Fox Hill Campground in Spencertown, NY

When planning our camping trip for the Empire State Mountain Unicycle Festival, it was hard to find any additional information on the Fox Hill Campground in Spencertown, NY beyond a phone number and a review here and there. One person talked about stopping to swim at the beach, which was helpful to know, but lacked any photographs. It was then that I decided I would at least document things from our perspective. 

Fox Hill Campground is about seven minutes from Chatham.  We went into Chatham for dinner after setting up and found a few different restaurants that all seemed pretty busy.  Finally near the turnabout there was a small sign for a restaurant called the Eatzzeria and even smaller signs for what they served:  burgers, wraps, salads, pizza, and subs.  We tried it out and had a nice chat with the owners.  They had just bought the shop and have only been open about seven weeks.  Our family had burgers, a wrap and a salad with chicken.  Everything was nicely made with good portion sizes.  There is an area to sit and eat with 3-4 tables.

At the campground everything is done on paper.  We had "reservations" but it was simply our name jotted down on a sheet of paper.  We filled in our registration on a paper ledger and were able to pay with a credit card.  It was $25 a night.  There is a small store with inexpensive treats for the kids such as 2 cent Swedish Fish, 10 cent mini candy bars and 10 cent pretzel rods.  Wood is sold too and one staff member offered us the Mule of wood for $40 and thought it would be perfect for our group.  There is also a small laundry facility and bathrooms at the office.

Near the office is beach parking and a small sandy beach on a pond. It is life guarded sometimes, but open for campers to swim at your own risk. There was nice sand and a grassy area near the sand.  It was chilly, so no one went too far out in the water.  My kids had a ball in the sand.

The playground is small and almost always occupied with the campground kids.  The playground has a teeter totter, swings, basketball hoop (bring your own ball) and chin up bar.  We didn't spend too much time there.

The majority of the sites here are permanent sites complete with fancy decking, some sheds and lawn ornaments.  We noticed one empty site and then there was the tenting area where we would stay.

Tenting Area Fox Hill Campground

The tenting area was very nice for a group tent area. There were trees and lots of shade. The corridor between the woods was rather narrow, but we made it all work. The bathhouse is right near the tent area and also the only place to park your car. The sinks had warm and cold water and there were flush toilets. The soap didn't appear to work so I left an extra bar of soap in there. Because most campers use their RVs, we had the bathhouses to ourselves. The showers were coin operated. 25 cents got you about 5 minutes of hot water. 

Bathhouse

Each campsite had a picnic table and fire pit. They all seemd rather unused. For our purposes, we had one big fire furthest from the bathhouse.  If you we had been camping at one of the tent sites and other sites were also occupied with people we didn't know, it would have felt like too close quarters. But for our group, it was perfect. 

Empire State Mountain Unicycle Campers

Stuff Sack Tutorial

We are planning a camping trip again and will be bringing along too much stuff.  In an effort to condense some stuff, I made these stuff sacks.

Last year I created these sleeping mat toppers that made sleeping in the tent quite nice.  They are cut from fluffy memory foam which takes up a lot of space.  I stored them in garbage bags, two to a bag.  I thought a stuff sack or even a compressible stuff sack would help out.

After looking at available products and considering some dry bags we already own, I created my own stuff sacks.  Fortunately I had all the materials I needed at home.  I started with PUL waterproof material, leftover from diaper making.  Another option would have been to use nylon.  The 1" buckles I had leftover from baby carrier making days.  For the strapping, I only had a small amount salvaged from something.

To test sizing, I tried out a half sized pillowcase I had made.  It was just right when I rolled the memory foam up.

Instructions:

Cut two 14"x 24" pieces of PUL
Cut two 2.75" one inch webbing
one 1" buckle
1" webbing or ribbon, 28" long

Stitch 1" ribbon/webbing along one short edge of each 14" x 24" piece of PUL.  Because PUL doesn't fray, I didn't finish the top edges

With right sides together, insert buckles and webbing into each side seam at top

 Stitch both sides and bottom edge

Pull out corners into triangle and sew in 1.5" to make box corners (Or it could be left square)

After boxing both lower corners, the bottom should look like this

Flip stuff sack right side out and top stitch where the webbing attaches to the side seam, this encloses the raw edges and gives it more stability.

Finished stuff sack

The memory foam topper folded and then rolled

Because I only had ribbon available for the top edges, I don't feel these have quite as much stability as if I had used webbing.  However the ribbon is much cheaper and what I had available.  The ribbon does keep the PUL from stretching.