Just steps from the water! How pretty is that?
Fred and Lucy came too, and we turned the T@b sideways to maximize our privacy and view of the lake.
Within minutes of us pulling into the spot, our camping neighbor came over to check out our little camper. He was an older gentleman, who currently owned a popup camper, and had trouble setting it up by himself. He saw how easily I was able to do much of the setup, and he thought it was worth looking into. We spent a lot of time this weekend talking to him about it, showing off some of our favorite features, and I even found a dealer in Omaha that had some in stock! By Saturday afternoon, he had an appointment with that dealer the following Monday to look at the camper! I hope he bought it and loves it like we love ours.
It wasn't all socializing this weekend. We spent a good amount of time sitting and staring at the lake and enjoying a campfire.
As always, we made yummy meals. This one was Greek chicken. Grilled chicken breasts with Greek seasoning, couscous, and a salad made from tomato, red onion, cucumbers, dill, Greek yogurt, and feta cheese. Give it a go! It was delicious, and most of it was made ahead of time to cut down on prep work at the campsite.
Sunsets on the lake. I like those! This was quite pretty, and shows what a calm evening we were having.
I finished the night with wine and campfire. Not too shabby of a way to spend some time.
Saturday, we drove to Carroll, IA to Santa Maria Winery. It was a lovely spot with an awesome bar for tasting!
I have dreams of making a smaller version of a bar like this in our dining room at home. It was really pretty!
My wine flight. I tried mostly whites and a red that intrigued me.
Andy's tastings were two reds and two whites. The huge wine glasses lined up on the table made us look like we were drinking a lot more than we were. No, honest! Anyway, we made a couple of purchases and went back to the campsite.
Once back, we went for a walk, just to see what was there. There are several buildings at the park that were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, including the picnic shelter.
Yes, I brought my wine on the walk. :) This fireplace was huge and gorgeous, so I wanted a picture. I walked up next to it, and noticed...a noise. It was a noise that I wasn't familiar with, but had enough sense to figure out that our voices echoing as we talked in the shelter had roused the bats sleeping in the chimney. I told Andy to get the pic QUICK so I could get away from the fireplace before they all started swooshing out! The hubbub was intense enough that I knew we were talking dozens, if not hundreds, of bats. 😨
Leaving bat-free, we continued our walk. We stopped and chatted with a couple who had seen our T@b parked down on the water and wanted to talk about it. While we described the camper, their granddaughter rode up on her bike, and after listening to us talk about our tiny camper said, "You should see the big camper parked at the end! It's so big, the slideout has FIVE WINDOWS!"
"Really?" I replied. Five windows seemed like an exaggeration, but we decided to go see for ourselves. Guess what?
FIVE WINDOWS!
This thing was massive. I'm telling you, I wish we could have parked the T@b next to it, just to compare! It would have been funny! Nobody was home, so we didn't have the opportunity to talk and compare camping experiences, but judging my the number of bicycles in their site, they had several people in their party, and probably needed a big camper. Anyway, it was entertaining.
Back at the campsite, we chilled by the fire and hooked up the lights on the T@b.
It was a chilly evening for August, as you may have guessed, but quite lovely for camping and fire sits.
Sunday morning, I got up for sunrise, and I was not disappointed!
Aside from one neighbor, I was the only one up and out that morning. What a beautiful and peaceful way to start the day.
We took some time to walk the Sauk Rail Trail as well before heading home.
As far as scenery, it never really changed. There was a more rugged dirt trail we could have taken that would have been more visually appealing, but we didn't know that when we started out, so we continued down this long, straight, paved tunnel of trees. It was pleasant, and when we started out, not busy at all, but action picked up when we were on our way back.
Walked about a mile and a half, decided to turn back at that point.
On our next trip here (we will come back!) we are planning on bringing bikes to ride this trail and go a bit farther, now that we know what it's like.
Two thumbs up for our whole weekend. It was just what we needed!
Happy camping!
Peggy
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