we came, we saw, we camped and it was good

this was a great place to camp. the only drawback i can see to the part of the park we camped in has no showers and the bathrooms weren't as close to the camp site as i like. for one day it was fine, for a weekend or longer, not so fine.

we got there yesterday morning and set up our tent. it's in three sections--the main tent and then a mini one on either side for each kid. pretty cool in theory. the main part isn't as big as we thought it would be, we could sort of stand up in it.

we had free time until lunch, a couple of hours. we went gem mining. THAT was really cool. you buy a bucket of sand and actually sift through it over the water sluice, like the miners used to do. the kids really got off on that and found a few gems. fool's gold, quartz, etc. nothing earth shattering but it was fun none-the less.

after lunch we heard a talk from one of the park people about animals and got to see/touch a corn snake (actually felt pretty silky), lizard, frog, chinchilla (very soft) and a ferret. then we toured their animal park. i had no idea all of this was so close to home. the animals there are wild rescue animals. they were either hit by cars, found injured in the wild, etc. they have red wolves there and i had no idea how close to extinction red wolves were. we were actually 14 red wolves away from having none--in the whole world! so there is a couple and a few of their babies here at this park.

after the animal park tour we rode the little train around the park. there's also a carousel (didn't have time for that or the putt putt golf) and in the warmer months a water park. overall it's a great family fun place.

cub scouts do not eat as well camping as girl scouts do. lunch was at noon and dinner was at 6:30 and there was nothing for the kids in between. kids, outside, being active, cold, etc. no bottled water, (we brought our own), no snacks, etc. poor planning in my opinion.

there was coffee, thank god, it was warm. so around dinner time i took a vicky cos i was starting to hurt pretty bad. then i proceeded to drink a lot of coffee the rest of the evening to keep warm.

we went to bed around 9. first we discovered the zipper on the hubs sleeping bag was broken. then we discovered we'd set the tent up on a root. about an hour after we went to sleep the girl joined us in the center tent. she was freezing and coughing. about an hour after that the boy joined us in the center tent. he'd taken his socks off; he was freezing. we all were dressed in layers. i had on three shirts and two pair of socks and was wearing a pair of gloves.

it was not comfortable, but once we were all in the center tent i think it was warmer. there were times during the night that i snuggled deep in my sleeping bag and slept. other times the coffee was battling with vicky so my brain was whirling around. i could have written some killer blogs last night i'm sure.

waking up this morning was probably the worst. coming out of the sleeping bag you were immediately aware that it was freezing ass cold. things were damp, we could see our breath. there was frost on the tents and the ground.

so we ate breakfast and packed up and came home. we got home around noon. the hubs and i took a nap until about 3.

i think, despite the hellacious wake up this morning, it was a good trip and we all had fun. i'd go back there again. this was our first camping trip altogether and it was nice. i want to do more of this next year but not, i say not, in november.