A Look at our "Vacation"

We're back from our so called "vacation". It was quite an adventure. It's pretty tough trying to camp with a very busy 1 year old! Here's how it started.

We stopped in MN for a couple of nights and camped with family, then headed out on our own on Friday. Someone had suggested Lewis and Clark Lake in Yankton, SD, so we tried it out. We arrived Friday afternoon and all their campsites were full! So we drew a number in hopes to get a campsite in their drawing at 4pm. That's when they hand out any cancelled campsites. While I waited, Ryan drove down to another campsite nearby on Yankton lake. He happened to get the last open spot, so he dropped the camper off and picked me up. By this time we hadn't eaten since breakfast, so we decided we better get some food in our belly's before unloading and setting up camp. The host at the campsite directed us into the town of Yankton and we didn't see much that looked too promising, so we just had to pull over at the next restaraunt...yep, it was the Frying Pan. They had all you can eat cod, good, right? Wrong, I couldn't eat any of it! Even the lettuce at the salad bar was soggy and transparent. I asked a waitress to put out fresh lettuce and she brought out a bag, said it was made this morning, but that all of their lettuce turns clear in 5 minutes no matter what. Huh??? Yuck! The cod was cold and soggy in the middle and the mashed potatoes tasted like cardboard, so I finally decided I had to say something. I tried so hard to be nice, but I ended my conversation with the manager with something like, "it tastes like a TV dinner." That was actually being generous. He gave us our meals for free. Thank goodness, b/c the cod was $10 each!

After we got the camper set up that night we decided to just try the Dairy Dock for some ice cream since we really didn't eat any dinner. Ahhhh, full tummy's time for showers and a nice sleep right? Hahaha. Did I mention our camper was a pop up? It's basically a glorified tent. We were lucky to have AC, a fridge and a mattress, but it doesn't offer much shelter or privacy. About 1 am that first night I woke up to this thrashing wind. I went to wake up Ryan, "do you hear that?" His response, "huh?" Okay, am I the only one that notices our camper is about to blow away. So I try to go back to sleep...then the lightening, thunder and rain blows in. We're in a full fledged thunderstorm. I'm looking at Ryan from across the camper and he finally gets up and looks outside. He then throws his clothes on and I ask him where he's going. He said to the bathroom, ALL of us are going! So I throw on my shorts and flip flops, grab Logan, a blanket and my purse and we run to the bathroom. The poor kids were completely out of it when we brought them into the light of the bathroom. We were all wet and I was trembling. I was so scared, mostly b/c Ryan was so worried. Well we survived that storm and it blew over fast, but I'm glad we took shelter. The next day Ryan talked to the guy camping next to us and he said he was in a pop up camper one time in a bad storm and he sat in his truck only to watch the whole camper lift up from the ground and flip over!!! The next night we had awful wind again. No thunderstorms, but the wind sounds like a tunnel in that camper. I woke Ryan up again and he said I was just being paranoid, and go back to sleep. Ugh!!! Needless to say I didn't sleep much the rest of the trip, I was a little freaked out.

We did have fun on Satudray renting a pontoon boat out on Lewis and Clark Lake. It was beautful. Ryan once again scared me though while I was swimming. He says it makes him nervous to swim in big lakes that are attached to rivers b/c you never know what kind of crazy fish are in it. Oooookay! I jumped out quickly and didn't get back in. Logan too wouldn't swim off of the boat.

We rode bumper boats and go carts the next night, which was fun, Chelsea really got a kick out of riding with me. Logan got to drive all by himself, he's such a big boy. (Did I mention they were the Kiddie Carts?)

On Sunday we paid way too much money to rent a fishing boat and take it onto the small lake by the campsite. This little lake was so small and overgrown with moss we couldn't hardly get around, and obviously couldn't cool off in the water. Oh and the fishing was a bust, Ryan said the fish were too small to catch. I don't know if that's what he says when he can't catch any fish, or if that's really true???!

Monday it was defniately time to head home. We did hit a beautiful nature site. It was 1500 acres donated to the state for perservation many years ago. We were very tired when we arrived and it was soooo hot. Boy we were glad to get home!!!

Here's my baby girl:



This is her new smile for the camera:



She loves the water:


pix from the nature site:


He's all boy!!!


This is the only picture of me from the whole week!!!! I told Ryan to take this picture so I could at least prove that I was on the trip!