Camping #6 Sunburned Shins

Our camping adventure this week took us to Kickapoo State Park just inside the Indiana border. We stayed at the campground on site, which gave us potable water and pit toilets, but we also had access to a free shower house. Huzzah!

This was our first time using the tent. Brilliant! We had ample space to spread out and a cool little breeze all night. 

When we arrived at 3pm, we set up camp and hopped back in the car to tour the Park. We found several playgrounds, saw wild deer and turkeys, and walked a trail in the woods along High Lake. We're in a drought, so it was more like "Lower than ever, stinky, and brown" Lake, but the trail was nice. 

Back at camp for dinner, I started a fire. It occurred to me that next time I could make James our "Fire Master." At home, I encourage him to learn these things, but once we're camping, I completely forget all of that. And when we're camping he's usually so engrossed in the audiobook-of-the-day that he forgets to ask me. This trip, we listened to "Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin" by Liesl Shurtliff. Very good! We finished it and started on "Grump: The (Fairly) True Story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves." Also good, but it took a little longer to get into it.

Well, once the fire was lit and ready for hot dogs, I decided that I didn't care if mine was warmed up, so I started preparing one cold. The boys, upon realizing that they didn't HAVE to roast their hot dogs, eagerly prepared cold ones for themselves, too. Gee. That was easy. We did use the coals for marshmallows, though. Those simply MUST be roasted. And, once the food was done, we lit the dried out "cow chip" I had brought home from South Dakota. 

Why would ANYONE use those for fire?! They must have been desperate. So much smoke! And it was the burning grass kind of smoke...all choking and sharp...it smoldered for an hour before I just had to douse it. I was probably doing something wrong.

The boys had a great time brushing their teeth that night. James' water bottle got stuck in my shoe for some reason and he thought that was HILARIOUS. 

Getting water from his shoe water bottle.

If there's a picture with a pose, it was Matthew's idea.

The night went as well as any camping night. The boys couldn't fall asleep until 10. I woke up every couple hours uncomfortable or really uncomfortable. Matthew rolled into me all night, looking for something to snuggle up against. Dawn came far too early.

The next morning, we took our kayaks to Kickapoo Adventures for a ride up the river.

Matthew loved "falling out" of this boat.

Matthew's idea. Again.

Aaaaaaaaand also Matthew's idea. 

The river was pretty low. I believe the official water level was 0.8 feet, and that's pretty much what we saw. The boys' little sit-on-top kayaks glided over most things. My inflatable kayak would only stay half inflated (!!) and I weigh more than the boys, so I did a lot of dragging and walking. Ugh. Most people can kayak that part of the river in 2-3 hours. We took 4.5 hours. It was quite the slog. The boys got on and off their kayaks a lot, though, and they stopped to explore pretty much everything. I was trying really, really hard to enjoy the moment, but I was worried about my half-inflated kayak, the fact that we brought NO FOOD with us, my shins getting roasted by the sun, and the moment the boys would decide this was no longer fun. That moment came. We were all tired and hungry. But there was no early out. We had to finish the 7-mile run. Matthew got wounded, James got peevish, I got snappy. Then we saw the 3rd landmark. We were only 1 mile away from the finish! That last mile was hard, and slow, but we got happier the further we went. And finally, finally, we saw that golden flag. Whew.

There were a couple straight cliffs along the river. The boys got out to explore a little.

Guess whose idea this was...yup.

James discovered heaps of huge freshwater mussels (clams?) all along the river. He mostly found (and collected) empty shells, but this is a live one. And one even squirted him with water. We also saw several bald eagles and blue herons, an enormous carp and catfish, and many little schools of fish fry that would jump out of the water likes pods of dolphins.

The trip was looooong, though. We all got tired.

But we kept going! 

Exhausted by our kayaking adventure, we snarfed down our lunch, broke camp, and headed home. I didn't let James bring home all the shells he found. Just his favorite 5. He spent the next day cleaning them up.

This was a pretty good trip. I keep learning more and more about how we like to camp. Maybe by the end of these 11 camping trips we'll finally have it all figured out!!