Yellow River State Forest

we laughed forever at this picture.  Doesn't Tyler look like a turtle?!?!?

This picture isn't much better...

If you were curious as to if we were still doing these, we are.  Turns out it’s a lot slower going with kids.

So while the kids were at Camp Grandma again we decided to camp a few nights before picking them up.  Thursday night we set our GPS and chose the “scenic route” which winded us through small towns and there were a few times we weren’t sure if the road was going to take us somewhere or just end.  My only request was that we eat at somewhere that wasn’t a chain restaurant.  We chose “Greasers” and Ty definitely paid for that decision the next day ;)

We weren’t able to book this campsite online, so we had to gamble with just showing up and hoping there was an open campsite.  Turns out we pretty much had the entire campground to ourselves that night.  We set up our tent and got everything unpacked and then headed to town to buy groceries.  Turns out the grocery store in Waukon closes super early so we chose the next best place—Kwik Star.  Have you guys ever been to one of these? Holy crap they sell everything.  We were able to get all of our breakfast, lunch and dinner items in one place.  I think we looked pretty strange at 9:30 at night on Thursday night using a shopping cart and buying groceries at a gas station, but hey we’re okay not being considered townies.

The campsite was awesome.  It reminded us of Colorado.  We were in the middle of a valley with very large hills surrounding our campsite.

As you can tell, we were the only ones there.  Apparently showers and running water turn most people off...

Saturday morning we woke up and made a delicious breakfast of campfire hot pockets which consisted of eggs, bacon, cheese and bread.  Our next task was to explore the State Park to see if there truly wasn’t any facilities with running water.  Turns out we were unable to locate anything other than a toilet seat covering a hole in the ground.  And that’s why no one was camping here... We did take some pics at the lookout:

See that little clearing in the middle with that brown stump looking thing?  That's the "toilet" at our campsite.

Ty ended up taking a 2-3 hour nap, while I just couldn’t get comfortable—it was just too hot, even with nice breezy hammocks.

My view of the "river" from my hammock

When it's too hot to nap, just drink instead...

We LAUGHED at ever for this one too.  Sweet view for Ty... and no, I'm not birthing him...

Turns out it's pretty tough to get a picture of both of us in our hammocks...

Taking full advantage of no kids...

After naptime we had a grand idea to creek walk.  Turns out the water must have been a spring from up North because IT. WAS. FREEZING.  The icy water was too close to Ty's man parts and he was not enjoying it at all, so after about 10 minutes of cooling off he was over the creekwalk. 

At least we scored some swwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet shoes out of it...

So instead of an awesome creek walk adventure we decided to check out the next town over.  How could you not love the name of this town?  There we searched high and low for some sort of memorabilia.  All we could find was a koozie from the local gas station with the town printed on it.  That’ll have to do for Miss Harper. J  We had some beers at the local bar, drove around the town, stopped at the Farmer’s Market before heading back home for dinner.

On our way back home I spotted a sign for a National Park (did you know Iowa had one? I did not).  So we scooted in the museum building right before closing time.  We wanted to take a hike to visit the mounds, however, in our current condition (hottest day EVER and no facilities to take a shower) we decided against it.  Until next time EffigyMounds.

After dinner we sat around the campfire sweating some more before we finally called it a night.  I think the heat got to me that night because I was delusional.  I woke Tyler up to tell him I heard raccoons and I was afraid they were going to attack our tent.  I woke him up again to let him know I had to go to the bathroom but I was afraid the raccoons were going to jump me outside.  Later that night it got really windy and we could hear a nasty storm rolling in.  I woke Ty up to let him know I thought we needed to pack up all our gear before it started down-pouring.  All I could think of were some disastrous camping experiences in the past. He asked what stuff that we had to pick up and I told him the tent.  He said, “Uh, we’re in the tent”.  Needless to say I got about 3 hours of sleep last night and it never did really storm.  It got really windy and a couple of times the tent bent over and the roof of the tent hit us in the face.

Sunday we were ready to see our babies.  We packed up and busted it back to STA where again, I don’t think they really missed us...

As always here's a list of the 55 State Parks (only 45 more to go!):

Ambrose A. Call State Park

Backbone State Park

Beeds Lake State Park

Bellevue State Park here

Black Hawk State Park

Brushy Creek State Park - here

Clear Lake State Park

Dolliver Memorial State Park

Elinor Bedell State Park

Elk Rock State Park

Emerson Bay & Lighthouse State Park

Fairport State Park

Fort Defiance State Park

Geode State Park

George Wyth State Park - here

Green Valley State Park

Gull Point State Park

Honey Creek State Park

Lacey-Keosauqua State Park

Lake Ahquabi State Park here

Lake Anita State Park

Lake Darling State Park

Lake Keomah State Park

Lake Macbride State Park

Lake Manawa State Park

Lake of Three Fires State Park

Lake Wapello State Park

Ledges State Park

Lewis & Clark State Park

Maquoketa Caves State Park

Marble Beach State Park

Mcintosh Woods State Park

Nine Eagles State Park - here

Pallisades-Kepler State Park

Pikes Peak State Park

Pilot Knob State Park - here

Pine Lake State Park

Pleasant Creek State Recreation Area

Prarie Rose State Park

Preparation Canyon State Park

Red Haw State Park

Rock Creek State Park - here

Shimek Forest State Park

Springbrook State Park

Stephens Forest State Park

Stone State Park

Union Grove State Park

Viking Lake State Park

Volga River State Park

Walnut Woods State Park -here

Wapsipinicon State Park -here

Waubonsie State Park

Wildcat Den State Park

Wilson Island State Park

Yellow River Forest Camp State Park just camped!