After several overnights in our backyard Cooper and I graduated to a real campground this past weekend with a trip to
Walnut Point State Park. He was absolutely beside himself with excitement, which made it a bit challenging to get packed and get out the door. Once we got our site prepared (he dug a hole in the dirt while I pitched the tent) the first thing Cooper wanted to do was go for a "hike", which meant a half-mile stroll around a paved nature trail. It turned out to be a quarter-mile too long for his taste. After that we went fishing in the lake and managed to catch a smallmouth bass with the humongous nightcrawlers we bought on our way in. It's always important not to get skunked when you fish, so it was a successful outing.
When we got back to our site we made a nice fire, cooked hot dogs, played with sticks in the fire, drank Tang, stoked the fire, made smores, poked the fire, then went on a walk around the lake. Cooper's favorite activity turned out to be throwing rocks and dirt in the water off the dock. It was fairly hot and very humid, so despite the threat of rain in the forecast I decided to leave the rain fly off when we turned in for the night. At 12:30 a.m. I woke up and saw lightening flickering in the sky and heard the distant rumble of thunder. I husteld to get the tent covered up and finished just as the first raindrops started to fall. What followed was a classic Midwest thunderstorm with heavy rain, lots of lightening and incredible thunder. Cooper was a bit freaked out, but settled down and got back to sleep pretty quickly.
The next morning we got up and I noticed the dad with his two kids at the site next to us had packed up and cleared out in the middle of the night. Ha! Fortified with more Tang and instant oatmeal we packed up and hit the lake for one last session of fishing. We caught one more fish, a crappie (or some kind of panfish), then headed home to dry out our gear and tell Julie and Anna what they missed. Cooper's favorite part? The marshamallow sandwiches.
