Weekend Scenes: A Rainy Camping Trip

Ever since G read a Curious George book about camping, we've been promising him we would take him for a night in the woods. So on Saturday morning, we packed up the car, dropped off Miles with Grandma and headed about an hour away to camp near Lake Red Rock. It was a hot, humid day, but there were no clouds in the sky when we left Des Moines.

This is how much stuff we had in the car for one night of camping.

We went for a short hike before finding our campsite, but Grant, having skipped his afternoon nap, got tired quickly and wanted to be carried.

A big draw of camping for him was sleeping under the stars with animals, so he was excited to see some deer tracks in the sand.

We didn't see any deer, but he did spot a bunny.

When we got to our campsite, we set up the tent while G took a rest and picked flowers. Note the dark clouds over his shoulder...

Sure enough, just as Kent finished setting up the tent, it started to rain lightly.

But soon it was pouring. So we got into the tent to stay dry. G was tired and laid down in his sleeping bag.

Then we saw lightning. Time to get out of there. We got in the car and drove to the nearest town to kill some time and check the weather.

The forecast wasn't so good: heavy rain with a chance of hail until 8 that evening. So we decided to throw in the towel. Back to the very wet campsite to pack up again.

In the meantime, G fell asleep.

We headed back home, where we enjoyed oven s'mores and our own cozy beds instead.

{By the way, it has been a record dry spring in Iowa. We've had so little rain that our grass is brown and crunchy. We are just that lucky to pick this weekend for camping.}