We went on a last minute camping trip to Dinosaur Valley State Park. For the first time ever we only stayed one night. This park is so close by, it worked out well. I really enjoyed this quick trip, and I think I might encourage more one night trips in the future. It helps that I do very little of the set up and tear down :)
Since we arrived at the park early Friday morning, we were able to enjoy two full days of fun exploring and spending time together as a family. There is nothing better than getting out doors, away from the city, to reconnect and recharge! We spent most of our time cooking, eating or hiking. We even enjoyed a 2 hour family nap in the tent! The weather was beautiful during the day Friday, but turned chilly that evening and remained so during the day Saturday. We kept wondering where Saturday's predicted high of 68 was going to come from with all the clouds! Luckily, we have a small heater that we used while we slept in the tent, so we were cozy through the night and all slept well. Both boys had strange bedtime clothing requests. Levi insisted on wearing his mittens and hat to sleep, and actually kept them on all night! As I dressed Joel in his warm fleece footie pjs (I figured he would need them to sleep in the 40 degree weather) he started to whine and didn't stop for about 10 minutes. We tried so many things to calm him down. Finally we took his feet out because he was saying, "no pants!", to see if something was stuck in there and bothering him. Well, once he had his feet out the flailed around until he was in nothing but a diaper. He immediately quit crying, walked over to his sleeping bag, climbed in and laid his little noggin on his pillow. All while giving us a very satisfied grin. We convinced him to at least wear a shirt. Philip and I couldn't quit laughing at the contrast of our big boy all bundled up and our baby half naked!
Dinosaur Valley is a pretty small state park, so you can easily walk from one side to the other and see all the sights. We hiked through the woods, the grass and along the shore of the Paluxy river. The boys LOVE hiking! Philip and I really enjoy watching them explore God's creation around them and be filled with such excitement and awe. Penny also loves our hikes (walks) because it usually means she gets to roam off leash and bound through tall grass.
We usually do the majority of our camp cooking on our Coleman stove, but it has a leak in the fuel tank, so this trip we did all of our cooking over the fire. I really enjoyed cooking over the wood coals, and I think I will be doing it more often in the future. For lunch we grilled up sausage, green beans and fruit. At dinner time we made venison backstrap with baked potatoes and asparagus (YUM!). Saturday morning we just kept it simple with oatmeal and bananas for breakfast. For lunch on Saturday we had the obligatory roasted hot dogs with chips and fruit :). Of course we brought hot coco and apple cider to sip around the fire, as well as snacks and the fixins for smores! For us food is a big part of any vacation!
One of the main reasons we wanted to go to this particular state park was to see the dinosaur tracks and models. Joel and Levi both love dinos and Joel is especially obsessed with "din-a-saws" at this moment. I tried my best to get a cute picture of the boys by one of the huge model dinosaurs, but Joel could not peel his eyes away to look at the camera. He was either trying to get under or over the fencing to touch them or staring up at them in awe. After a good visit with the dinos we headed towards the river to hike around and see the different fossilized foot prints. We all had fun climbing up and down the rock ledges to the different sets of tracks. Levi found some moss or algae and had a grand time playing with it and turning his hands green. The tracks were pretty impressive! It's a little hard to imagine those giant lizards roaming around Texas! All and all it was another dino-mite Boyer family camping trip and a roaring good time :)
