What a year it's been. As we look back, it's amazing to think about all of the things our family has done and been through together over the past year. Wednesday of this week is our anniversary, so on Randy's days off this weekend, we packed our van and headed to Hoosier National Forest for some time of "relaxation" and refreshment, along hashing over memories from the last year and general fun!
We decided on Thursday evening that we would head down for the weekend. On Friday morning we loaded the van and headed south. In an attempt to avoid packing extra stuff that we really didn't need, I told Randy that we shouldn't bother to pack the propane stove, we could just cook on the fire, that would be fine. Did you notice it's been pretty dry this year? Yeah - no fires in the forest.. seems they don't want anyone to burn it down.
We got to HNF after a couple of stops to drop things off and pick things up for our trip. Drove around for what felt like an hour, in order to find a sufficient camp sight. We found the perfect site finally and set up camp. The boys loved running/crawling around on the leaves, riding the "bike" and hiking to find wood (we didn't know yet that we shouldn't have a fire). We made a very small campfire to cook our potatoes and sausages, and enjoyed relaxing with the boys around the fire. Okay, so mama wasn't entirely relaxed with her babies next to the fire, but it was a good time anyhow.
When dinner was done we bundled the babies inside the tent.. I mean bundled.. poor Cassius had 3 layers of clothes, a snowsuit, a very heavy blanket, and 2 thinner blankets, Mannasseh wasn't far from that. Nasa didn't want to fall asleep, we finally turned out the lantern and talked while he worked on dozing. The night was warm... until we fell asleep.. it got really cold on Friday night, something like 39 degrees, YIKES.
Saturday morning it was really too cold to reasonably hike with our boys, so we decided to head to Brown County State Park where we could enjoy the nature center - indoors! Then go to our favorite pizzeria and walk to the coffee shop. It was a beautiful weekend and Nashville, IN is VERY Busy at this time of year. There was no parking and I was hungry, we left and ate at some little diner out in the country. *By the way, wait staff in little diners in the country seem to be kind of annoyed when you ask about eggs and peanut oil before you order things. The first item we asked about got a frustrating response "It comes in a box frozen, I don't know if there's egg in it"... Can't they look?
We drove back to the forest and climbed the fire tower.. well, I climbed 2 flights of stairs, Randy and Manasseh climbed the rest of the way.. Manasseh climbed by himself. Then a short - very short hike. THEN we saw the no fires sign. After much deliberation we determined it would be a good idea to break camp, throw our kids in the van and head home... well, to Nana and Poppy's house, it's closer.
A fun time camping and hiking nonetheless!
0 comments:
Post a Comment