We were headed up to OK, but found out there was a burn ban, and what’s the fun in camping without a fire?  We ended up at Martin Creek State Park, in one of their little cabins.  We like to do tent camping, but Illianna is still a little too young.  Illianna loved running around the cabin and exploring the woods.  She was collecting things and giggling at every corner.  I’ve never seen her so filthy, and let me say she is a regular mess pot, but this took the cake.  I turned a blind eye to the dirt until she grabbed some cereal which had obviously fallen in the dirt/ash and came up to me with dirty hands and a black mouth trying to spit it out.  Poor little thing.  She’s so well trained to pick her food up and eat it after it’s fallen on the floor.

It was nice to see trees older than a couple of years, and we almost had the park to ourselves, but there was a huge power plant humming in the distance and a stupid train announcing its presence every hour or so.  We were able to see some wildlife, roast marshmellows, hike around, and see a few more stars than we can see from our backyard, but we won’t be returning to that park.  We managed to take a pretty decent photo of ourselves.

We did a lot of hiking.

See that hole on the right. I climbed through there with Missy Moo along for the ride. That was darn difficult. I couldn’t just get down on my hands and knees because just the day before we were hiking around in the snow and I fell and bruised my knees.. bad.

We didn’t do any intense hikes this time because it was the first time I’ve worn a pack since I was a teenager at summer camp . I’m glad we stuck to the easy stuff because that’s all Illianna could do anyway. She is at the age now where she’s too interested in everything to fall asleep anywhere other than her bed. Towards the end of the trip she was doing better to sleep in the car, but that was out of total exhaustion and desperation. I’m not sure how long it will take her to catch up on missed sleep. Nor am I sure how long it will take us to catch up. She woke us up everyday at 5AM, which is 6AM her regular time. Usually when she wakes up early at home, I let her hang out in her crib until time to wake up, 7AM, but you can’t really do that when you’re in a hotel room.

Maybe if I have a little more time or energy I’ll blog a bit further about the whole thing, but right now I’m not that into it. more pics