annual camping trip

We went camping at Indian Cave State Park (plans changed) last weekend with Adam's family, but I didn't get any good pictures. (This one from last year is of our favorite camping site, which we've camped at for 5 years, now.) The first year we camped here in a tent with Catherine. The second year we took our friend, Anand and his mom, who was visiting from India. Here, I have to digress. I was astonished to learn that his mom had never before had a marshmallow! Never even heard of them! So, it was a pleasure to introduce her to the American tradition of roasting marshmallows over a campfire. She had one (Delicious!) and another (That's enough! Too Sweet!). She taught us how to make a kind of fried banana pancake. They are amazing. A quick and easy shortcut (perhaps healthier, too) is to mash a few overripe bananas in your instant pancake batter. Very yummy.

Two years ago we came here with a pop-up camper when Anthony was 3 months old. Last year, we invited several families and had a great time with many of our friends. We wanted to do that again the first weekend of June, but it didn't happen, so instead, we made it an extended family vacation. We spent an afternoon in Historic Brownville, did some bicycling, Adam and his brothers rode motorcycles, and I spent a lot of time playing at the park with the kids. Adam got to look into the eyes of a not-at-all shy hummingbird while standing next to a feeder but he also got attacked by chiggers...we're talking two to three hundred of them! I don't envy him one bit, because the twenty or so bites I have are bad enough. Fortunately, the kids seem to be chigger free. Nevertheless, it was fun and we'll likely go again next year.