It's the Final Campout

James, Matthew, and I took a couple days this Fall Break to camp, hike, and visit the Indianapolis Zoo. It was the last of James' birthday goal campouts and the second to last outing on Matthew's 8-while-8 goals. We couldn't have ended on a better note! 

First of all, the weather was PERFECT. 

Matthew woke up the second morning, opened the tent door, and exclaimed, "Wow! This place is beautiful!" This is what he was looking at. 

Second, the boys had been back in school for a few weeks, so a camping trip was actually fun and different from the norm. Both of the boys said several times, "I just love camping 'cuz you don't have to do anything. You just get to do what you want!" 

Third, the campground we chose was pretty nice: White River Campground in Cicero, IN. It wasn't swanky, but it had the most important bits (running water, flush toilets) and it felt supremely safe. We were surrounded by grandparents in campers with their grandkids. 

Here we are on the first night on the huge, lit-up bridge that connected our campground to a nature preserve next door. Matthew initially was too scared to go onto the bridge since he couldn't see how deep the water was. He was concerned the bridge could possibly break. James went barreling ahead. Matthew put on his adventuring attitude, though, and braved it with us, finding it pretty fun in the end. As long as he didn't get too close to the gaps between the slats.

We went for a short hike in the nature preserve the next day. Matthew was wearing his moose pajamas and James gave me a unicorn horn for this shadow picture.

Matthew took this panorama picture of our campsite.

Fourth, the boys did a lot of the work. They packed their own suitcases and bedding, put up the tent, unloaded the car, cooked the meals (with supervision), and helped with all the take down and repacking, too. No complaining. Best camping trip ever. 

We forgot to bring the roasting sticks. No worries! Matthew is on the case. He soon discovered that snow gloves aren't durable oven mitts, but none of the melted plastic got onto him or our food. Whew.

The boys putting up the tent. It's a pretty straightforward setup, but how many people even know how to do this anymore?

Mathew was taking artsy pictures with my phone. Here, I'm filling the pot for oatmeal.

Fifth, the outings were especially interesting:

We stopped at a sports car dealership. Here are the boys with a Lamborghini.

And here they are with a Lotus specially created to look like one from a James Bond movie. This was our first in-person experience with a Lotus. James loves seeing these cars at dealerships, but he gets crazy excited when he sees them, as he says, "in the wild."

There was a natural history museum nearby. We got to tour models of Native American structures from the region and read about the different peoples who lived in this area before Europeans arrived. We saw skeletons and furs of native animals. James found a microscope and looked at various things. 

After the natural history museum, we visited a nature preserve about 30 minutes away. This is Matthew posing as an adventurer/explorer. They had a program called "Owls of Indiana" where the presenter brought out several owls and hawks that he had been conditioning for educational presentations like this one. They were awesome. A few of the more memorable moments involved an enormous red tailed hawk shooting feces almost 7 feet behind it, the cutest little screech owl in existence (even though he was fully grown and 30 years old!), and a couple birds of prey eating dead mice...they've all got their own methods...the boys had to turn away once or twice. The facility had a huge tortoise named Chumley. The boys thought he was alright, but they really loved hearing a 4-year-old running towards him shouting excitedly, "Chumley! We're back, Chumley!! Where are you, Chumley?" 

On the second day of our camping trip, we headed to the Indianapolis Zoo. That's another blog post altogether. Stay tuned.