Camping- yes, we finally went!

Last spring I remembered that I really wanted to get out camping this year. I say that I make my family go camping once a year, so they remember what nature looks like, but in reality we have probably only averaged once every 2-3 years over our marriage. We have outgrown our family tent, though, and have gotten a bit achier as well as a big bigger over the past few years, so I knew that I needed to look for a cabin.

There are a lot of state parks in Colorado. Each with a fair number of cabins.  Searching online I looked for any cabin in any state park w/in 4 hours of Denver that was available on any weekend this summer. It also needed a fishable lake nearby as Thomas had been begging to go fishing.  That spring search led to one result: A single room cabin at State Forest State Park on the weekend of August 4th. Period.

So I booked it. Is "State Forest State Park" even a real name? Who voted for that? Well, it is. And it is a real place. And it is unbelievably beautiful. Probably the only reason it was the only available cabin is because it was in a place called 'State Forest State Park'.

Doing a little research, I found that this is the 'Moose Capital of Colorado' (maybe Moose State Park would have been a better name...or 'Big Antler'. 'Sizable Schnoz State Park' even has a nice ring to it.
Unfortunately we didn't come upon any moose, but the roads were lined with deer welcoming us. No shortage of wildlife.

This was a 3 hour drive on Friday: straight up to Ft. Collins and then due west. The drive was lovely, once we got out of traffic and once the singing started. I have always encouraged singing, but it doesn't usually catch on. Maybe it was boredom, maybe it was because the kids were trying to conserve energy on their phones bc they know they would be without power for 2 days. Whatever the cause, the musical show tunes began and went on for probably 1 1/2 hours. At one point everyone was stunned to silence when Sean sang a sad, dramatic number from Hunchback of Notre Dame in it's entirety. Drama, on key, amazing.  I just never know with that kid. Probably my favorite part of the whole trip.

Once there we quickly settled in to our cabin: one room with 2 bunks and a futon. The next day we were lounging around after hiking and Thomas came out with, 'You know mom, I really like this'. Me, 'You mean this cabin?'. Thomas, 'No, just having all of our beds together in one place. It's nice'. It was. Saturday evening we played a story dice game. The story that evolved ended up being 'Dora the Explorer themed'. A little throwback to their childhoods and was hilarious.  Each kid has their own style of storytelling.

The hikes let to a beautiful alpine lake and beaver dam after beaver dam on a little meandering stream. I was amazed how many wildflowers will still out in August, lining the paths.

We had a little rain, a little complaining on the hikes, and some bruised feet, but we also got to know each other a little better, felt success of 2 out of 3 fire building tries (although the cabin next to us always had a massive thing raging...it felt like they were mocking our attempts ;), but we had what we needed. 

Maybe next year the kids will act a little more excited when I tell them that camping is on the agenda!

We tried a fire Friday night, but only had 15 min of sunlight left after we arrived and fire 1 was unsuccessful. Next day, we had two successes. Thankfully! As pancakes and stew were on the menu and we had forgotten our campstove. 

Mmm, s'mores. We've been apart far too long.

Hiking to our first geocache. We knew we were close when we rounded a bend and saw a group of 10 (mostly kids) grouped around a tree stump. Then we heard on adult explain to another adult, 'Yeah, we weren't even looking for it, but I glanced over and saw this metal handle sticking out of the tree...'  We had been hiking for 45 minutes and keeping a close eye on our GPS.  Ah well. The kids didn't seem too disappointed. We found 3 geocaches that day. The most challenging was hidden in a little cave up the side of a steep hill. 

Only moose we saw was this one made out of barbed wire at the visitors center. It was pretty remarkable in it's detail, though.  And safer to go up and pet than the real thing.

Thomas' first (only) catch of the day! A bit of seaweed. Something is better than nothing, I always say. Thomas got his fishing hook out of one of the geocaches we found earlier. 

Our cabin was the smallest  of the 3 pictured. Furthest left above the kids heads.