Trip 6 - Louisville State Recreation Area

It seemed like it had been too long since we last camped so we were all excited to get out of the house on Friday, work has been stressful for both of us so we needed some time away to do NOTHING and de-stress. I got off a bit early and had the camper back at the house and ready to load the girls stuff into and the dogs (we always love taking those two along) and get on the road. After about a 30 minute drive we pulled in and quickly realized that they had a LOT of water standing in the campground and some minor flooding was still evident from the previous weekend. I'll post some pictures of that shortly.

Once we got everything set up with no troubles we settled in and had a nice relaxing evening including roasting hot dogs for dinner around a nice campfire.

Usually when camping its pretty hard to sleep in and Saturday was no exception and we were up by 7am. Valerie made a great scrambled eggs and sausage breakfast with coffee. There's something extra special about a good cup of coffee or three when you are camping. Alyssa had wanted to go swimming Friday night but it was too late once we were all set up so she and I headed down to the swimming lake and pretty much had it all to ourselves at about 8:30 on Saturday morning, the water was COLD, lets just leave it at that. We sat up our new screened in tent and spent some time lounging in that after our early morning swim.

The plan was for the Hildings to join us this weekend and they showed up around noon on Saturday ready for the camping experience... We grilled up some lunch and we had a good time throughout the day on Saturday with swimming and bike riding taking up parts of the day. Val and Michelle went to our nephew's surprise birthday party in Omaha on Saturday night and left the kids with Matt and I. Guess what, we all survived. Part of the reason for camping close was so our families could be represented at the birthday party so that all worked out well.

Once the girls had left we had the first of two rain storms on Saturday night. Eric had come down and the three of us huddled under the awning watching the rain for a bit. Bret and Brooke were in and out enjoying the rain with us and Alyssa was pretty much glued to the movie she had playing in the trailer. I try not to get the TV out much when camping, we usually reserve it for bad weather and this certainly qualified for bad weather. We had huddled everything under the awning and put a few things away in anticipation of the rain so everything stayed pretty much dry except for me and Bret. I realized that the awning wasn't slanted quite like I wanted it after the rain started and I adjusted it and as I was tightening the tie down the water came off the awning and DRENCHED me, this was no small drenching. Bret thought that was rather funny and he indulged in the drenching as well. We had a great time.

This rain only kept up for maybe 20 minutes or so but it was fairly heavy at times. It cleared up, the girls made it back, and actually our fire flared back up so Eric, Matt and I enjoyed roasted marshmallows and adult beverages around the fire for the rest of the night until Eric hit the road.

The storm on Saturday night was the same storm that produced an F2 tornado just 15 miles north of us in Omaha. The first CRASH of thunder at 2:20 AM had me sitting straight up in bed in a split second. Now if you know me you know I could sleep through a hurricane so you know this was loud. I listened to the weather radio for a bit and heard Tornado warnings for Omaha but no warning exactly where we were at so after about 30 minutes I went back to sleep. There ended up being quite a bit of damage in the Millard area of Omaha and not that I wish anything bad for anyone I thank GOD that those tornado's weren't 12-15 miles south because they would have gone RIGHT through the park.

Sunday we relaxed, had some wonderful breakfast and Matt helped me get things packed up and ready to go. They took off around noon and we did a few more things, took a trip through the park and were through the dump station by 3pm.

I think everyone had a pretty good time and I am glad it went well. We had a little "anti-coordination" with sleeping arrangements but we'll know better how to handle that next time.

Until Next Time...

More Pictures of our Trip and the Flooding



Yes, thats us.








Lots of Geese with babies around








Our campground was dry but it was close








Other Sites weren't








No dry fishing here?









Want to build a Fire?

Usually Sand Bars spot this river

Relaxin

Just WHO is the BOSS?

PS: You know Eric calls my blog the HAPPY CAMPER blog and he;s right, I am. Maybe a name change is in store for this blog.... hummmm...... Nope, dont think so...