Yep, I've managed to go another whole month without posting on my blog. It's a vicious cycle for me, I know I have stuff to post, but it's too much to sort through, so I just shrug and do something else, like some real work, or watching a food reality show on TV (we are loving Top Chef Masters and Next Food Network Star!). Or I Facebook. Anything but what I should be doing which is blogging (okay, so I should be doing real work first anyway...right?).
So, I originally decided to do a list post and catch ya'll up on what we've been doing the past two months. But then I started writing and realized that this would indeed be a post about out camping trip. So, here goes.
See, I told you we packed.
We headed out the day before Memorial Day for a three day trip. We packed our Forester with everything we thought we'd need and then some (which meant we had a FULL packed car). The theme song for our ride there was "Rosanna" that Denny thoughtfully burned on a CD with some other songs he thought we'd get to here. Boy was he wrong. Our little dictator in the backseat wanted to hear "Rosanna" again and again and again. Dylan enjoyed the music and telling us all about the signs we passed by: "it's a blue sign", "it's a green sign", "it's a yellow sign".
We reached the campground and it was pretty crowded (until the second night when everyone had gone home after their three day holiday...we were off til Tuesday :). Luckily the cabin we rented was across a little creek from the main area. Oh, and did I mention that same little creek ran right by our cabin. You know what comes next right....creek stomping! Dylan and I walked all the way to the little waterfall and back a couple of times (and Denny did some creek stomping as well).
What else is there to do after getting wet in the creek but roll around in the dirt??
Dylan loved this little perch right next to our cabin.
That afternoon we lit a fire and cooked some burgers, corn on the cob, and potatoes in foil for dinner. Yum! Dylan was a bit resistant to bedtime, so we ended up throwing our tired non-napping boy and hopping into our nice air-conditioned car (did I mention it was kinda hot?). We decided we'd drive towards The Wilds so we'd know where to go the next day. Blue Rock State Park is nestled right in the heart of nowhere. It is seriously backwoods on the roads from the park to The Wilds. The roads were mostly gravel, but the scenery was lovely. Dylan fell asleep, but we decided to keep going and see what we could see. We found The Wilds birdwatching area that was free and open to the public. Beautiful view in the evening. We began to get excited for our safari the next day.
"I HAVE MADE FIRE!"
One of the gravelly roads between the camp and The Wilds
The next morning we made campfire biscuits (self-rising flour + cream soda=yum), eggs and bacon, then we loaded up to go see the animals. Going to The Wilds is like going on a safari in the middle of Ohio. They have all sorts of animals there (including two of Dylan's favorites: Rhinoceroses and Giraffes) wandering around. We rode on a small bus through several large gates and entered into the natural habitats of the animals. The first animals we saw were camels, just milling about beside the road. Dylan wasn't too excited, he was much more interested in his cupful of strawberries, but once we got him looking in the right direction that helped. He was much more excited when we got around to the rhinoceroses. (and did you know that rhinoceroses use their poop as a messaging system? They can tell who is pregnant, who is sick and which direction the herd is heading by smelling the poop. ) The giraffes were pretty far away from us unfortunately. Dylan also enjoyed seeing the cheetah, until we had to drag him away because evidently the cheetah was eyeing him a little too tastily (according to the ranger). Anyway, we have lots of animal photos on Flickr, so you can see the other animals on our safari.
"Hey Dylan, look over there....camels!"
And Indian Rhinoceros. We saw the two-horned white rhinoceros and her baby later on.
You can tell he was smiling by the hint of a dimple on his cheek.
Dylan and the giraffe. The giraffe stayed at the gift shop but we brought the much smaller (and cheaper) stuffed rhinoceros home with us.
Dylan was quite enamored with the big tall stuffed giraffe in the gift shop, and was not too happy when we told him it was time to go. But, he took a good nap in the car (and we had a tasty treat at Dairy Queen). After his nap he asked to go on the bus to see the animals again. Sweet little guy. Instead, we went creek stomping and jumped in the lake. We finished off our camping food with an easy dinner of hot dogs, more corn and chips.
Dylan and his rhinoceros smooching.
Trekking through the creek.
In the lake.
Our attempt at a remote family photo. Dylan didn't want to turn around and it was getting dark so when we moved we'd be blurry. But, you can see our tiny cabin, picnic pavilion and the smoke from our campfire.
Our best meal though was breakfast the next day, when we whipped up our first batch of sourdough pancakes cooked on the cast iron skillet. Talk about delicious...they were so tasty....a little crispy on the edges, perfectly chewy on the inside. Mmmmm.
Breakfast on our last morning camping. Notice that the pancakes are almost all gone. In the next photo in this series Dylan is attempting to feed his rhinoceros some cereal.
Before we could pack up and leave, Denny had do change our flat tire. He noticed it looked low the day before and while Dylan was napping he filled it up with air and bought some Fix-A-Flat just in case. Good thing he did. The spare tire did great all the way home. Our them song on the way back was "Another Postcard" by Barenaked Ladies. Otherwise known in our car as "Monkeys". We had the little requester in the back saying "Monkeys again" quite a bit, and making us laugh at his very funny faces while asking. He napped early on, and was happy the rest of the way home.
"Monkeys again!"
Funny faces.
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