One of my goals for this spring was to take a one-on-one camping trip with each of the kids. It would be a great way to spend some quality time with each of them and teach them a thing or two about camping and exploration. Kansas has a lot of state parks on the east side of the state. They are almost all fishing and recreation type lakes. The only one I had ever been to was Hillsdale, which is only a few miles from Olathe, but I wanted to go someplace farther away and do some recon for future family trips. So, I made reservations at two lakes on back-to-back weekends. First up was Fall River State Park, about 2hrs south of Olathe and about 50mi east of Wichita. It was decided that Owen would go first, so we headed out bright and early on Saturday morning.
Both kids said they wanted to go fishing on their trips. I am not a fisherman at all. I know some about it thanks to work and Garmin's interest in fishing products, but the last time I fished was when I was like 14. I've never baited a hook or cleaned a fish. So what did I do? I went and bought a cheap fishing rod and got my fishing license! We would not be cleaning any fish though. Definitely not ready for that...
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| Here we are at the overlook on the east side of the lake. The east side was like the land that time forgot. Everything was abandoned and dilapidated and there was no one to be seen. I was hoping the whole lake wasn't like that! |
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| Here's another overlook on the west side of the dam. |
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| Thankfully, the other half of the lake was inhabited. They had a pretty nice campground and a playground within walking distance of our campsite. |
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| It was WINDY (more on that later) so we broke out the kite. Owen did a great job once we got it up there. |
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| After lunch, after we sat up our campsite we decided to try this "fishing" thing. No luck - but we aren't the two most patient people in the world either. |
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| Our journey of exploration continued and took us below the dam. Two of the spillways were going and there was a really nice fishing and camping area. |
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| Even though he looks like a pro, we didn't catch anything here either. You CAN see the original bridge across the Fall River though. That was pretty neat to drive across. |
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| After fishing it was time for a break from the wind. The pictures don't show it, but there was a steady 15-25 mph wind out of the north the entire time we were there. And we were camping on the south side at the edge of the lake facing north, out across a mile of open the water. How convenient! After a few hours it gets into your head. I thought about pulling the plug and heading home, but that would have gone against the very spirit of adventure that I was trying to teach! So we made the best of it by flying the kite and walking down to the lake to throw rocks in the water. |
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| Owen kept busy by playing diggers and exploring the neighboring campsites. He also made a 4x4 course for his little monster truck. |
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We ate pretty well, even though it was a huge hassle to do anything in that wind. Owen wanted to do bacon cheeseburgers for dinner. They were yummy!
I should have widened out on this picture a little. What you can't see is our big tupperwae camping box with the coleman stove on top of it to form a windbreak for the grill! |
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Here's the view from our campsite. Very pretty!
After dinner we went over to the kids pond and tried our luck again, but still came up empty handed. :( |
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| Despite the wind, we took a chance and lit a fire. There was tons of driftwood around and it burned really well without getting too big. We stayed out in our chairs watching the fire until about 9:30 and by then Owen was pooped. He hadn't had a nap all day and was ready for bed. So as soon as the fire died down we called it a night. It was chilly but thankfully we had Owen's Lightening McQueen blanket to throw over our sleeping bags. :) We both slept pretty decent. After a quick breakfast we packed up camp and headed for home. All in all it was a GREAT time and we both lots of fun. I wouldn't trade it for the world! |
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We saw this on the way and Owen made me stop to take a picture to show Mommy and Elsie.
WOW!!! |
My birthday was last weekend and we got to celebrate it by going to the Royals game that night! And they won! Thank you so much to Grandma and Grandpa Cox for the tickets.
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| Elsie and Maryanne made me this gigantic card! It's hard to see but the lower left corner says "You're growing up so fast." :) Truth... |
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| Tailgating. This was Owen's first game. |
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| Love this picture! Our seats were about 10 rows back so we ran up between innings and took a look. |
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| Last but not least, Elsie drew this ADORABLE picture of me walking Millie while Elsie rides her bike. So cute I had to share it. |
It's been a fun couple of weekends! Next weekend Elsie and I are going to go camping at Pomona Lake if the weather is nice. Hopefully it is just as much fun! We've got a campsite on the edge of the lake all lined up... :)
Later,
Ryan
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