On the winding highway between our rural Kansas home and the rural Missouri state park, we were trapped behind a gravel truck that dropped a monster of a rock on our windsheild about five minutes before it turned off the highway. The cost of the trip immediately doubled as that windshield was a complete loss. Thankfully, things improved after that.
Kansas Dad's parents and brother and sister-in-law joined us for part of the trip as well. It's no Great Sand Dunes, but we enjoyed ourselves.
Kansas Dad and Missouri Uncle supervised the fishing. We saw lots of fish, but didn't catch any.
There were plenty of hiking options. We found three trails perfect for our family and probably could have done more with more time.
For some reason, I love pictures of my family hiking off into the woods.
The hatchery fascinated the children, too, so we spent some time there feeding the fish and marveling at the sizes and numbers.
Second Son is about a foot from where we saw a monstrous snapping turtle. This little waterfall was just over the bank from our camp site.
I kept hoping the kids would learn something about geology.
But they mostly wanted to play in the water.
"Don't worry, Mom. We won't get wet..."
Don't worry, kids. There's a laundry room.
It was actually a lovely trip, with lots of time for the kids to just revel in natural settings. Then one of the kids got sick in the tent on the last night. While not enjoyable, we survived the ordeal and learned you can handle just about anything camping. (We also learned to pack Chlorox wipes which are worth purchasing for camping even though we don't use them at home.)
Oh, and we were all reminded why Kansas Dad is my hero. Real husbands crawl out of snug warm sleeping bags in near-freezing weather at 1:30 am to clean up vomit in a tent, not that you should mention it at your wedding.
