Two Times The Chaos!: Camping - Late in the Season

My brother recently purchased a used pop-up camper and invited us to go camping with him, his girlfriend, and our niece. So we packed up our things and headed to Lazy D's Campground in Altura, MN over the weekend of September 23rd and 24th for a 2-night adventure.

The last time we went camping, "Little Man" was really little, "Feisty Girl" wasn't even part of our family yet, and we roughed-it in a tent. So this, I had a feeling, was going to be a completely different experience.

I have very fond memories of camping as a child. My family went camping somewhere in southeastern Minnesota nearly every weekend for many, many years of my childhood. My brother and I had "campground friends" and a good majority of our extended family could typically be found camping with us as well...including aunts, uncles, cousins, grandpa's and grandma's! I remember swimming, fishing, horseback riding, rollerskating, playing video games, hiking, riding bike, playing tennis, playing shuffleboard, telling ghost stories around the campfire and many, many other things. Camping when I was a child was great experience and I was hoping that this weekend with my brother would lead to the start of some of the same great memories and experiences for our children -- and the weekend did not disappoint!

My brother (bless his heart) did almost all of the work for us...he took a 1/2 day of vacation on Friday so by the time we arrived the camper was already set up, he had dinner on the grill, lawn chairs were readily available, and there was an assortment of cold beverages calling our names! So we quickly transferred some of our things from the van to the camper and then dug into dinner. After dinner the adults sat around the campfire (late into the evening) chatting and just "catching up" while the kids ran off to do their own thing at the playground, which was located just a hop, skip, and jump away from our campsite. Later that night we went to bed and all seven of us comfortably settled into our beds in the camper -- it was perfect, My only complaint that night was that the heater didn't kick in often enough and the electric heater didn't keep up enough to keep those of us on the very ends of the camper quite warm enough.

Saturday morning I woke up and made breakfast for everyone. We eased into the day, not even showering until around 10 or 11 a.m. and after that we all had separate activities planned for the day. My brothers girlfriend, my niece, "Little Man", and I all wanted to go horseback riding...well, I guess you could say that I convinced "Little Man" to come horseback riding. Since neither myself nor my husband wanted to risk a trail-ride accident with our daughter (her leg is still on the mend after surgery), my brother, my husband, and "Feisty Girl" decided to take the short drive to Whitewater State Park and check out some things there while we were horseback riding.

After our separate activities, we all met back at the campground and then rented three "FunCycles/PedalCars" to try out around the campground for a bit. My niece, "Little Man," and my husband raced around the campground for nearly a 1/2 hr. straight before tiring out. It was really fun to watch them race each other and see the smiles on their faces each time someone else took 1st place!

Saturday night my brother cooked supper (again), we sat around the campfire (again), and sat around the campfire (again) while the kids played with the "campground friends" that they had met the night before. Sunday morning we packed everything up and headed back home...the little adventure was everything that I hoped it would be -- we had a blast and have already talked about doing it again next year!

We were all so busy relaxing, I didn't even take time to snap many photos of our little adventure...but here are photos of some of the moments that I did manage to capture: