Our Vacation

For the last two weeks my husband has been on vacation.

The first week we went to the Illinois River.

We always procrastinate, so we didn't get there until almost dark. lol

I was kind of frustrating because there was a burn ban, and we we couldn't cook out over the fire, so we had to buy a little charcoal grill.

And of course we had to put it together in the dark! With bugs flying all over me! OOHHH

After we got it all together my husband cooked hot dogs, and we went to bed.

The next day we had a lot of fun swimming down the river. We decided not to rent a raft as the water level was so low. A lot of people were bottoming out.

We swam for almost the whole day, and then decided to try to find a free wilderness camping site. We had been told there were some, but couldn't find any.

My husband wanted to camp out under a bridge by the river. UH, NO! I was not comfortable with that.

Luckily he said we could find somewhere else.

We were going to go back to the campgrounds, but we went back a different way and accidentally found a sign that said primitive camping 5 miles.

So we drove all the way down the road and came to the campsite, if you can call it that.

It was so scary! We turned on the head lights and set up the tent. We had already eaten out before we got there, so we didn't have to worry about that.

As soon as I got the tent set up, my husband went out to the car, and a snake went right in front of him. He said it looked like a copperhead! YIKES!

But we calmed down from that, and as he was getting something out of the car, he heard a loud stampeding noise that really scared him. He turned around, and there were about 15 deer running up from the river into the woods. He said it was awesome! I wish I could have seen it.

He told us to come see, but as soon as we got out of the tent he told us to hurry up and get back in. He saw a coyote in the woods.

OK, I have had enough. I am ready to go at this point. Back to the nice campgrounds were there are no Snakes and Coyotes! OK, there might be, but not as likely.

We stayed, but we had a hard time sleeping, wondering if anything would come up to our tent. Well I did at least, my husband slept fine. lol

The next morning we got packed up, and went down to Barren Fork River and swam all day.

You could see all of the fishes in the river, it was so clear. It was really fun.

But later that night my husband wanted to go back to the primitive campsite to camp again. It's free, ya know? lol

So, we did, and getting there before dark was much better. It didn't seem as scary.

So, we set up camp, and my husband and the kids fished. At this point we had just been eating out for all of our meals, as the town was super close, and we didn't want to mess with the grill.

The next morning we woke up, and went swimming. It was so nice. I wish we could live right off of the river...

But guess what we saw on the other side of the river on a big rock? Bear poo! Yes! Oh My! I didn't know we were out there with bears. Then the kids informed me that they found some last night just down from our tent on a tree on the river.

So they showed me, and it was still fresh. AAAAHHHHH. That is so scary. I don't think I want to camp with bears anymore.

It was really fun though. We had such a great time together. It was really bonding for our family.

And I love long car drives, so I like taking these long trips.

Well, thanks for listening to me babble on. lol The one thing that I regret was not bringing my camera! What was I thinking?

Next time I will have pics to show you!

This last week we just stayed home, and did pretty much nothing, but it was so good to have him home.

He had to go back to work today. SAD

But I am happy we got this time together. He hasn't had a vacation in over 6 years.

Next time we go camping though I need to find some tips on how to keep the bugs away. We have bug bite all over our legs. And I still have some kind of rash on my tummy. Poison Ivy or something.

What kind of tips do you have for camping?