Greetings Blast!!!!
I have thoroughly enjoyed your journal entry. I too have been through a similar experience. With that in mind, please think about Lessons 11 & 12:

11) When the friend (whom you've never gone camping with before) suggests going camping by having to haul everything in,,,,,Quickly, have him DEFINE: "having to haul everything in". This is why I too have brought equipment and supplies for one kind of camping (backpacking) only to belatedly realize that another type (car camping) is what they were talking about.

12) Be EXTREMELY careful at regular state or national forest type of campgrounds where you are primitive camping near other people!!!

My case in point:

Having set up camp at Ocala National Forest in the primitive area, everything went well that evening. We had a heck of an electrical storm during the night (ended up sleeping in the minivan). The next morning, everyone is up, we're fixing scrambled eggs, biscuits, bacon, etc,,,,,,,,,when we started hearing some rather deep-throated animalistic noises emanating from the camp next to ours and about 30 yards away. It was a young college couple there and they were practicing the fine art of tricyle motor manufacturing inside of their tent. She was one of the rather loudly vocal types who was very much enjoying the manufacturing process. We kept hearing the words, "I'm coming" like it would be written in a porno book (DW & I kept acting as though nothing unusual was going on) until my 7 year old DD1, sitting in her chair at one end of the picnic table, suddenly turned to DW and myself and clearly said: "I sure will be glad when she gets here because I sure am tired of hearing about her coming!"

Out of the mouths of Babes!!!!