Harv's first camping trip/Anniversary getaway

Hopefully not all anniversary trips will include kids, but we made an exception this year.  We headed down towards Mt. Rushmore and stayed in a campsite at Pactola Reservoir.  Tanner found some good fly fishing around there so we thought it was a good all around place to be. We drove down Wednesday after Tanner got off of work and found a great campsite in plenty of time to get camp set up before dark. Harvey was really excited about s'mores on the way down.

 The next day Tanner fished a little in the morning at the lake. He also made a killer dutch oven quiche. We played our favorite camping game - Ten thousand - which Tanner schooled me at, as usual. We hiked a bit around the lake.  Rozzi and I swam. It was a lovely, mellow afternoon.

He had to keep score on his phone because somehow we didn't have a pen.

LOVE.

 

 She actually swam pretty well and fetched quite impressively, even without the Sams helping her out. She's still been so melancholy so it was fun having her out and acting like a happy dog again.

We decided to head to Mt. Rushmore that night since it was only about a half hour away.  We also made a stop in Rapid City to by a charcoal chimney and get Little Ceasar's crazy bread - something we'd been craving for months :)  We even ran into a family I grew up with, the Warner's. Really random but also very fun. 

Harvey fell asleep on the way back and Tanner and I enjoyed ourselves a nice camp fire.  It was the eve of summer solstice and there were some folks enjoying their evening with hula hoops and harmonica's and drums.  Not terrible annoying until it went on well past "quiet time" and neither of us could sleep. So I was that girl and walked over there and asked them nicely to stop the drumming.  Luckily they were pretty cool about it. 

The next morning was more gaming and relaxing and hanging out. We had left over quiche and then went to the river coming out of the reservoir to try our hand at some more fly fishing.  Tanner is getting pretty good.  I didn't really fish this trip because of the wee one.  It was super hot though when we went so after a couple hours we went back with hopes of returning later in the evening (the rain had other plans for us).

Hammock naps are the best!

 

Dad saying he's number one after multiple 10,000 domination's.

 

After we got back Tanner started making some dinner (he keeps telling me he can't cook. pshh).   And Harv pooped all over me.  Camping blowouts are a little bit more complicated but we survived :)

 

 Those photos go nicely next to each other, right? Once we got the coals going and things cooking, it started looking like rain.  So we tried to protect all the things we could and when it started raining, we headed to the tent. It POURED for about 30 minutes.  After it let up I grabbed the food (luckily it was pretty well cooked) and we ate in the tent. 

We had service up there so Tanner checked the weather channel radar and things were not looking good for the rest of the night or the morning.  We made a game time decision that we'd rather not be stuck in the tent the rest of the night and then still have to put down camp in pouring rain. So while it was "nice" we tour down camp - in about 30 minutes. Harvey sat in his bumbo on the picnic table and got rained on a little.  He liked it.  And then we drove the 6 hrs home and left the muddy, wet mess in the truck and showered and crashed.  The next day was a big mess clean up but it is totally worth it to me.  I LOVE camping and I want Harvey to have lots of memories in a tent and around a fire and in the mountains! I was probably about his age the first time my parents took me camping - not that I remember it - but we all grew up camping and it's definitely made me appreciate and yearn for mountains! So glad we got a little chance to get away and break Harvey in while we celebrated (almost) 3 years of marital bliss!