A Day with No Electricity

This past Friday afternoon, we headed off down the road, past the burning prairie, to our closest campground - Paynes Prairie State Park - for Tyler's first camping adventure in the outdoors. Our goals were simple. We wished only to see that Ty had fun, and to try out our gear for the upcoming trip across America.

Things began well, with Ty noticing a crawly friend right off as we started to set up our camp. He helped us pull things form the truck and set up his lawn chair just outside the fire circle. When I asked him what he was doing sitting down, he leaned back in the chair, closed his eyes, and did his best impression of snoring!! Wish I'da caught that on video!!!

Dinner the first night was steak, carrots, and garlic noodles, on our small propane stove and grill combo. Roasted marshmallows followed as dessert. We broke laws as we realized that our measly 8 logs of purchased firewood would not be enough, and we began to search the nearby woods with a headlamp for kindling. But soon the fire was roaring!

The first night proved difficult. Our gracious friend lent us a tent, that, once we put two adults, a sideways sleeping baby, and a large dog inside, seemed a bit cramped. So between snoring and blanket stealing, only Tyler got rested! His first words upon waking in the tent were, literally, "I did it!"

We took freezing showers in the campground comfort-station - NOT comfortable, despite actually having hot water - but a concrete and tile building stole all the heat from around you! Unless you were directly in the spray - you were ice!

We took a leisurely hike to the playground with the soccer ball, but spent most of the time on the swings and slides. We explored the boat dock and wooden pathways that wound around numerous sinkholes along the waters edge. We watched sail boats begin their trek across Lake Wauburg, but did not witness any alligators this time, much to Tyler's disappointment. We found a well-hidden picnic area, complete with restrooms, and planned to have a cook out there someday soon.

After a lunch of egg salad sandwiches, the rest if the day was spent trying to solve the sleeping dilema, and another small pup tent was purchased for mom and Buddy. A short hike to the Observation tower over the prairie showed us 5 whitetail deer and one large gopher tortoise. Tyler found a friend in the 4 year old neighboring camper, Zoey, and they played the rest of the afternoon until dinner time. You can't camp without having hot dogs!! Sorry no pics this time! It was too delicious to stop!

Our second fire was well planned. Kindling had already been gathered and stacked, and TWO bags of purchased firewood were placed on the fire, which after our marshmallow routine, smouldered all night, providing us that wondrous smell of the outdoors in the morning!

In all, it was a learning trip. We learned what worked, and what didn't. But most importantly, Tyler had fun! He asked to sleep in a tent the very next night!