Summer Rehash

So, since I didn't get to keep you up to date on the summer as it went on, I figure I'll just go back and relive some of the highlights.

Every year we go camping with a group of people in the mid-June timeframe. It gets planned 11 months in advance so that we can get the campsites we want. Some years it works out better than others, but it is a lot of fun. This year's trip was certainly worth mentioning.

When we make our reservations we make them for Thursday through Sunday. This year on the Thursday we were supposed to leave there was torrential rain in the area of the campground. The campground was actually closed because of flooding in parts of the park, so we were out of luck for Thursday.

Early Friday there were a lot of phone calls and plans being made and changed, but we ended up with campsites, in a different park. Luckily for us the new park was much closer to our house than the one we originally had reservations at. So instead of staying at Devil's lake, we went to Rock Cut State Park.

We were the 3rd or 4th group to arrive, so we got to choose a nice spot under a tree.
Last year we ended up with the least shaded campsite in the area, so this was a nice change.

After most of the families had arrived and all the tents were pitched we went for a little stroll on one of the walking paths.

We even managed to pick up a stray kid who's father didn't have any problem with a completely unknown group of people take his kid wandering around in the woods for an undetermined amount of time.

One of the families got there early, but had to take a quick stop at the emergency room within 5 minutes when their little guy had a bit of a problem.

He was fine, but it was not a great way to start the trip.

The second day we spent a good deal of time at the boating/fishing lake. No swimming allowed.




After spending the afternoon paddleboating and canoeing around the lake we returned to the campground where there was a stray branch growing straight down from one of the trees. There were a lot of people swinging on it,

trying to climb it,

and successfully making it up to the main branch.


After the evening around the campfire we went back to our tent, climbed into our sleeping bags, and discovered that there is a racetrack about 2 miles from the park where they have races on Saturday nights. It didn't really blend well with the crickets and cicadas.

Sunday morning we awoke to the sounds of thunder and rain. Since this was our first time camping with this particular tent, it was nice to discover that it is, indeed, waterproof, at least in non-hurricane conditions. The rain let up briefly, but when I called home to have Son check the forecast we learned that it was probably going to rain all day long, so we packed up and went home.

We've already got our reservation for Devil's Lake for next year, so if you're there around June 20 stop in and say hello. We'll be in the big blue and yellow tent with the knitting lady sitting out front.