Vacation photos

There's nothing like looking at other people's vacation photos, is there? At least you are not trapped in my living room, and can escape at any point.

On Tuesday, we left, not bright and early, but sometime in the afternoon when we finally got everything packed and ready to go. Leaving for trips is not one of our strengths. But, before the sun went down, we were on our way.

G. and K.

D.

P.

Everyone in back except for the front bench with P. and D.

Y.

We camped at Nelson Lake State Park just north of Dubuque, in Wisconsin. It was right on the Mississippi River, up on a bluff. The beauty of mid-week camping is that we had the whole campground virtually to ourselves.

D. and G. in front of our big tent.

The other three smaller tents, in the second campsite. Yes, we do not fit in one campsite these days.


You know you're camping when everyone breaks out the ultimate in camping fashion... socks with sandals.



On Wednesday, we started out the day with a nice hike. (L. was a little disappointed that she didn't bring her cloak along on this particular hike, as it was very woodsy. She spent much of the hike telling everyone that we were escaping from Orks.)

The campground had a couple of walk-in camp sites, so we headed over to check them out. They were pretty darn nice, and this was the view from one of them.














After lunch, we loaded into the van to see what other adventures we could find. We ended up crossing the Mississippi on a small car ferry.










The rest of the afternoon was pretty much taken up with taking wrong turns in Iowa and unsuccessfully looking for ice cream places in the small towns along the river. It was a lot of car riding.



The next day was a cave adventure in the morning. We toured Crystal Lake Cave, south of Dubuque. It is a family owned cave, and was kind of cool. If you ask the younger people, they will say it was their favorite thing that we did. It was a little tighter than most other cave tours I've been on, and involved a little bit of deep breathing on my part.



After a lunch made and eaten in the rain, we headed to the National Mississippi River Museum in Dubuque. It was a pretty nice museum. We are now members, as it saved us $40 over the regular admission fee. We end up being members at a lot of places for the same reason.















And of course we did camp-y things like roast marshmallows...

(You know I didn't take this one, right? Photo credit to TM.)

Played games...
Read books...
Built fires...


and throw two tents away after a night of heavy rain. D. and K. ended up sleeping in the van because their tent was so very wet inside. 

So now we're back home. The laundry is nearly done, J. has hung wet tents and tarps up to dry, and everyone is now more or less clean. It was a good trip, but it's also good to be back in our comfy beds.

Comments

sandwichinwi said…
LOVE the National Mississippi River Museum! You get reciprocal (1/2 or Free) membership at the International Crane Foundation and at the Milwaukee Zoo with your membership.
thecurryseven said…
Sandwich...

That is so good to know!

e

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