Whitewater

My oldest turned 12 this week. We went camping. He wanted to explore a new place, so we went down to Whitewater State Park. We got, set up camp, and explored. We did some hiking up the bluffs, got really hot and went for a swim.

We had some rain after supper (thankfully the storms held off). We almost always have rain when we camp. My youngest dislikes camping because of the rain we always get. But this time it was a nice light rain. We played bocce in it. And they slept though the night well.

The next day we drove down to another state park. We checked out Mystery Cave and historic Forestville. It was fun to see the boys ask questions of the naturalist in the cave and to interact with the historic actors who took the boys back to 1899. I enjoyed watching them ask questions, answer questions and pretend they lived back in that time.

After playing some molkky (a Finnish lawn game) after supper, we all sat around the campfire and drew pictures of our campsite (unarranged--we just all ended up drawing the tent at different points). While the oldest read in the tent, the youngest and I took a walk and looked at the stars and fireflies.

On our last day we took another hike. It was supposed to be a short hike before lunch. It took us over two hours. We took a hike up to inspiration point for the view. Then we continued back on the trail we were on because there were lots of wild raspberry bushes (and a few gooseberries). The boys really enjoyed fresh fruit and ate their fill.

They were happy to get home after a couple nights away (we had only been home two nights before that after a 4th of July trip to be with family in Iowa). I wasn't as excited to be back. It was nice to be in the wilderness, seeing the stars at night, away from traffic. It was nice to have the time with the boys, making memories (I'm about to go into a long stretch without them around). Life is good when camping.