Frontenac State Park excursion

If you visit my blog regularly, you may have noticed that my posting has been a bit sporadic and inconsistent over the past few weeks.  There's a good reason for it (I promise):  I've been busy packing and moving to Mark's place!  I finished the move faster than necessary- a full 58 hours before my lease was up, so I've been relaxing and unpacking a bit for the past few days.  I have been taking a lot of pictures, so now it's just catching my blog up to speed with the rest of my life.


Up first, our camping trip from a few weeks back.  I posted some of the meals we made camping, but nothing else til now!

We picked a random set of days to go, and they turned out to be pretty interesting weather-wise.  The morning we were leaving, there were huge storms at home.  It hailed when we were loading up the car (the biggest hail I've ever seen) and again on our drive; we had to pull over to a gas station.

When we got to the campground, the ranger warned that a storm was heading our way, so we better set up fast or just wait it out in the car.  We got our tent up and good thing we did; there were flash floods and storm warnings for the next 8 hours.  Better in the tent than the car!  We played mancala, Mark had his guitar, and I crocheted.  Eventually we both fell asleep until the next morning. 

We woke up early for a hike. 

There were trees down across parts of the trail. How lucky that none had fallen in the campground!

 
Big mushrooms from the rainy summer:

Lichens on trees.  I just love the colors!  So much complexity when you get up close.

After our hike, we went back to camp and relaxed for a while.  I crocheted a bit.  I love camping, because if I choose to do something, like crocheting, it's ok!  I have no other obligations, like cleaning or homework, so it's perfectly acceptable to sit and do whatever I want.

Later we went on another hike.  We were going to take a path through the woods, a boardwalk through swamps, go off trail for a bit, and wind up on a perfect sandy beach point on the river.  I did it last summer, and it was beautiful, but it didn't work out for us.  About a half a mile into the woods, we were being swarmed by mosquitos worse than I've ever experienced, so were forced to turn around and literally run back to the car. 

We opted for a prairie hike instead.  It was very hot, but better than hundreds of bug bites.

We got to hang out with butterflies feasting on nectar from milkweed and look at wildflowers.

On our way back to the site, we saw a mama deer with a tiny fawn.  In all my experiences with deer I don't think I've ever seen a fawn with white spots up so close.

It was such a great camping trip.  I love camping at festivals, but sometimes you just need a quiet break to relax and enjoy the nature of your surroundings.