Camping

In mid May we camped over night at Tyler State Park. A very family friendly little park with paddle boats, canoes, kayaks, a swim beach, playground, and even a souvenir store. We stayed at my mom's in Emory Friday night so we could get an early start Saturday. That put us about half way to the camp ground. When we got there the best available spot would not be ready until 2pm (check out for the other people) so we decided to wait and run around the park while we waited for our site to be vacated. We played at the play ground, Dan did a little dock fishing, we had a picnic of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches






and then rented a paddle boat.. or peddle boat to be more exact.




That was exhausting and we were trying to fight nap time. Lea actually fell asleep on the little hump in the middle of the boat she was so tired. We peddled around the lake for a little less than an hour (and were exhausted!) It was beautiful and fun. Fortunately when we returned from our boat ride with our tired little monkey our campsite was ready.

We moved in and went down for a nap. Dan started the fire and we had a delicious stew. Lea was great about staying away from the fire. "Fire, very hot" she could say it and she knew what it meant.

We let her play in the water tub since it was a bit too late to swim. Also probably pretty cold. We warmed some water on the fire to make her "bath" more comfortable, but I don't think it ever really got as warm as bath water. She had fun though. We also collected pine-cones and rocks in our bucket.
The night was hard. It was colder than I'd imagined and darker than I think Lea was ready for. She woke a few times during the night and I recited what I remembered of our Pooh Bear night time story. I had it pretty well memorized! We got up at about 6 am and dressed warm, only to see kids across the campsite dressed in shorts. We had a wonderful fire cooked
breakfast of bacon and pancakes and packed up to head home.
First however we made our way back to the lake where there was a small foot bridge to tiny fishing island. We found a comfortable spot under the trees and threw hot dogs and left over pancakes to the fishes.

Lea could watch them eat as we sat by the water. We said in 10 years we'd return and Lea would catch a fish, say "this tastes like pancakes" and we'd know why! It was a great weekend, but we probably won't overnight again soon.