Memorial Day Camping Trip

Last summer, over Labor Day weekend, we took the kids on their first camping trip to Brown County State Park in Indiana. They had a great time and fell in love with camping. You can read about that trip here if you missed it! We've been waiting for a chance to go again and Memorial Day weekend presented the perfect time. The problem, we quickly discovered was that campsites fill up very far in advance and trying to find an open site that wasn't primitive (this pregnant mama needs a shower and a flushing toilet!!) was almost impossible! The Wednesday before my mom called and said she found an open spot at Big Bone Lick State Park with water and electric and a few hundred feet from the bathroom. "Book it!" I said and we quickly prepared for our weekend. Luckily the park is close to home so it didn't take long to get there and set up. Unfortunately that weekend the temperatures decided to shoot up into the mid to high 90's! Did I mention the campsite was in full sun also? Yeah, the days were roasting, but the nights were perfect and we ended up having a really great time! 

Big Bone Lick State Park is a great park. The bathrooms were very clean, there are lots of trails, a nature center, a museum (this site used to be the living grounds for Mastodons and Bison and the museum has tons of fossils that have been found on the property over the years. Very cool!) They still breed bison on the property and you can walk over and see them. 

On Saturday we went over to the nature center and museum. The nature center was closed so we decided to go ahead and do a hike. It was a little less than a mile and on concrete so it was pretty easy. The kids really loved it.

Mommy and her girl!

Reading about the sulfur springs that used to be here. People used to come to the area to drink the water and bathe in it. They believed it had healing powers! EEEEWWWW!!!!

Happy kids!

The bump...26 weeks...14 to go!!

He walked every hike we did...no carrying this kid :-)

 After the hike around the nature center and visiting the museum we drove down to Rabbit Hash, KY. We have lived in this area for 22 years and have never made our way down to Rabbit Hash. It was actually a charming little "town" and mom and I decided that we need to go back one day when we don't have kids and a car full of camping stuff. They had some amazing antiques there for sale in the merchantile. And the little General Store was too fun. Oh, and I will go back for that BBQ'd hog they were selling at the barn. It smelled AMAZING!!!!

Micah chilling in the back on the way to Rabbit Hash-yes, thumb in the mouth and finger up the nose...that's how this kid rolls! lol

The antique shop in Rabbit Hash.

Yes, I do believe this is an old outhouse.

The original founders of Rabbit Hash, KY.

This sign cracked me up! Apparently we are only 10 miles away from Sugar Tit! Can you believe there is a town somewhere called Sugar Tit?!?!

The adorable Mercantile.

What's small town USA without a general store? And a huge flag flying in front...God Bless the USA!

The Rabbit Hash Historical Society...cute little old log cabin! 

Saturday afternoon we decided to beat the heat and go to Steven's Uncle Tim and Aunt Pam's house for a swim. They only live about 20 minutes from the park so it was very convenient, even if it felt a little like cheating! But it beat getting heat stroke! (The temperature had risen to 97 degrees! Yikes!) When we got back to the camp ground mom had a fire going ready to put the dutch oven on for BBQ chicken and baked potatoes. The chicken was amazing and a baked potato made in a fire always tastes sooo good! Mom had also gotten an ice cream maker that we took with us. We made some strawberry ice cream. The kids loved every minute of it..they'd never made ice cream before! It made so much we had enough to share with camper next door to us. And they had enough to share with the camper next to them. Amazing and amazingly good!! Later that evening after showers we gathered around the table for a game of Apples to Apples. It was so much fun, probably one of my favorite memories from the trip! 

Amazingly yummy BBQ chicken!

Making ice cream.. this is why you get a site with electric! lol

The yummy result!

Do you think he likes it?!?!

Nina and her girl!

Playing Apples to Apples

Those are some worn out kiddos!

 Sunday we went on a hike up to the lack. It was really pretty and a dirt path with lots of trails to stay on and branches that have to be balanced on and climbed over. Much more of a real hike and the kids had a ball! 

We also went back to Steven's aunt and uncles house for the family Memorial Day get together. We figured since we were still technically in town we should show up! Plus, the temperatures got back up into the high 90's so I'm not gonna lie, the pool and the air conditioner were a God send! lol

Jumping in with Morgan.

Do you think he played hard!?!?

Monday we took one last hike before breaking down camp. Jonah wanted to check out the bison. He had been there once with his grandpa but he really wanted to show Brianna and Micah. We hiked back there. It was hotter than hot (already at 10 am) so we got through quickly so we could go back and get everything ready to get the heck out of there. The kids loved seeing the bison and going on one last hike. 

As you can tell we had a great time! Sorry this post is so heavily photo laden! I've got to find a better way to do this (maybe like figure out one of the many slideshow options that are out there! lol) And just so you know, it was painful to write this post...it took almost 2 hours thanks to the unbelievably slow performance of Blogger. Has anyone else noticed how slow it's been since the new format rolled out! I'm gonna pull my hair out with anymore posts like this, so I promise the next one won't have so many photos! :-)