Tag Archives: rving

Camping, Hiking, My Family

We went camping for Christmas!

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We wanted to do a trial camping trip with our new puppy but wanted to stay pretty close to home in case it went badly.

Osage Hills State Park was a perfect choice!

It was not very far away from our house and is a favorite hiking spot for us.

In fact my oldest went on his first hike there when he was one month old!

There were only a few other people camping so we had a huge area for the kids to play.
Milo did great on his first camping trip and loved hiking!

We saw so many Armadillo that I didn’t even look anymore when one of the kids yelled they saw one.

Ha

While up that way we went to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.

So many Bison and some beautiful hiking trails!

 

 

We went to see Christmas Lights in Bartlesville at Johnstone Park.

We did a lot of hiking.

And we checked out the Hulah Lake Wildlife Management Area and Wha Sha She Park(used to be state park).

We did not hit the WMA at the best time of day so I did not see much.

And the park was kind of run down with not much there.

They were both in pretty areas though.

We headed home on Christmas Eve after one more hike. I think if I had a tradition for the holidays it would be hiking and camping.

Now I just need to convince my kids to go on a Christmas hike every year…

 

My Family, National Forest, Parks

Lake Wister State Park, Runestone Park, and Ouachita National Forest

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I wanted to camp at Beavers Bend State Park for the festival but they were full when I checked a month or so before so we stayed the first two nights of our trip at Lake Wister State Park. Not all of the campgrounds were open for the season so we ended up staying at the Victor Campground. It was a beautiful campground, right on the lake but it did take a while to get back to it and the road was a bit rough. The plus side of staying right on a lake is beautiful sunsets and sunrises, the downside is it was a bit chilly. Our heater is not working in the rv right now so we were using a space heater.

The kids stayed toasting warm but our room was pretty chilly.

Rving in the colder weather with 5 kids is very different from the summer or warmer months.

We needed to pop up and down this dinette over and over so the kids can eat inside.

Not a big deal but that means everyone is in the camper more also.

One of the nice things about Lake Wister is how close it is to Runestone Park.

Runestone Park used to be a state park and I am sad that they did not keep it.

It has a viking runestone at the park that I went to see when I was a child and it was not common knowledge that vikings had come this far into the United States.

The path down to is it is beautiful, make sure you stop by if you are in the area.

We went ahead and did the Mountain Top Trail at the Ouachita National Forest while we were in the area as well. My original plan was to stay at the Talimena State Park for those first two nights but I changed my mind at the last minute.  I actually think it would have worked out better to stay there so if we make the trip again and want to break it up some, we will probably stay there. Back at Lake Wister, we checked out the Lone Star School Site and some hiking they have.The twins are taking gymnastics and decided these looked like balance beams.Next we went on the Lonestar Nature Trail.It had the most interesting fungus!I like hiking during Golden Hour 😉More interesting nature finds.We ended up stumbling across this really nice paved walking path at the end of our hike.This is a pretty small park and if you are not going to be playing on the water might not have much to keep your kids entertained but it was beautiful.

 

The kids stayed toasting warm but our room was pretty chilly.

Check out the video I made of our time there!

My Family, National Forest, Parks

Kabetogama State Forest and Voyageurs National Park ~International Falls, MN

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We camped at the Woodenfrog Campground in Kabetogama State Forest in northern Minnesota. The girls loved all the deer at the campground(the boys stayed with their grandparents).
This was dry camping and I have to admit the vault toilets were chilly, especially at night but it was not bad at all! With his girls. Voyageurs National Park does not have any land access campgrounds so we stayed at the nearby Kabetogama State Forest. Nick and I have canoed out to the National Park to camp before though! The campsites at the Woodenfrog campground were beautiful! And there is a trail right at the campground that was beautiful as well.

You could just walk this beautiful campground road.

So pretty.
We borrowed Nick’s parents camper.

We kept nice and warm inside the camper even without hookups 😉

Used power from batteries(recharged with generator during the day) to run fan for furnace and the gas furnace.

Kept it a little chilly to make sure we did not run out but it worked great. This was the campground trail. Amazing. You can access some of the Voyageur trails by driving.

The Echo Bay Trail was near the campground and was beautiful.

Trying to not share all the pics but it is so hard to choose! It was magic. Something magical happened while we were up there also…

It snowed! We found this road on the side of the road by International Falls. We stopped though and big beautiful flakes started to come down! The twins were not sure about the cold but Little Bit was as happy about the snow as I was! We walked on the Kab-Ash Trail for a little bit but it was really wet and it kept switching to sleet instead of snow so we did not hike long. The next morning we woke up to…

me squealing.

Because of this!!!!

There was a bit of a concern about being able to get out but we made it!

We stopped at the Echo Bay Trail on the way out and I took some snow pics before we headed back to his parents. Thanks for showing off northern Minnesota!