Camping in Missouri

We went on our very first camping trip since coming back to Missouri. We went to Washington State park, at the recommendation of the "Best tent camping in Missouri". All in all, a wonderful trip, in part because Molly and her parents came along.

Getting packed was a breeze - with all that space in the back of the Odyssey, all we did was just chuck stuff into the back. No careful packing required. Of course, that didn't stop me from forgetting some of the food, but on the other hand, we didn't forget anything important like tent stakes and sleeping bags. We also got to bring our spiffy inherited North Face orange tent for Molly's parents to use, so it has now been used at least once!

We were a little late by the time we got out the door and on the road. Combine that with traffic, and we were setting up in the dark. At least we had headlights, or it could have been worse. The girls and Ian, of course, were happy to start bouncing around in the tents as soon as they were unpacked. We set up the backpacking tent, but the girls declined to sleep in it.

Molly's dad was our resident fire-making expert. We had several campfires, in order to take advantage of the marshmallows and chocolate bars. The girls helped with some of the kindling gathering, and a bit of the fire-laying, then got side-tracked.

And the other nice thing about the campground was, of course, the playground equipment. While I'm not in generally thrilled with Missouri camping, it is nice that they have playgrounds, since there really isn't that much else to do. There was lots of monkey bar swinging (Isabella can do 1-2 bars, now, by herself) and a lot of running around like maniacs.

We did have one disaster - Isabella, in the process of getting out of the car, tipped over the booster seat and fell out of the car, bumping herself on the head. Not too seriously, but there was lots of wailing and tears. Them booster seats are dangerous...

  Nate and Jen suggested canoeing (aka "float trip"), which turned out to be a splendid idea. We managed to not tip over, despite Ian's best efforts at insisting on crawling into mom's lap just as we're about to go through a shallow turn. Hard to paddle with a kid sitting on your lap. Other than that, he was pretty good about not trying to get up and walk around in the canoe.

Isabella and Molly kept themselves entertained in the other canoe with Odie.

In poor timing, Ian fell asleep in the canoe just as we got back to the pickup spot, and of course never fell back asleep again. Sigh.

Isabella helped pack the car up as we were leaving. She had very specific ideas about what went where (sigh) but was otherwise pretty helpful. Of course they both crashed on the way back.