Monday, July 09, 2007

Weekend @ Pokagon State Park, Indiana

Last weekend - was a special family reunion weekend spent at Pokagon National Park, Indiana. Seven members of my family were meeting up for a weekend camping trip.
One of my cousins had booked the campsite, while me & another cousin planned out the food and camping gear to be carried there.
As always, our trip began at Walmart - the one stop for all the camping gear we needed ... a tent, sleeping bags (one brat cousin asked me to pick his sleeping bag as well!), charcoal for grilling .... By the time I was done with this shopping - it seemed more like living in a tent with all the usual things, rather than surviving with basic necessities!

We drove to Pokagon on Friday afternoon - hitting the peak Chicago traffic en route. After a few stops to pick up a snack and such - we were at the campground by 8 pm. Luckily, it was still daylight - (isn't summer just awesome?) and we soon pitched a tent with my neice and nephew helping out as well.

Getting a fire going was tricky, but we finally managed to get one going and were soon grilling kababs on skewers. Canned tomato basil soup completed the meal.

The next morning was spent hiking (well, walking actually) on a few of the park trails. It was cool in the woods and fun to meander along. We were back to our campsite in time for lunch. (Of course!) Went to the beach in the afternoon - this was one crowded place ... Headed back to the campsite and started the fire again (we were getting better at this by now...) and grilled some chicken over the coals. This tasted awesome! There's something about food cooked over an open fire that is just so tasty! :)

We happened to leave 2 covered boxes containing our provisions for the next day outside by our table, thinking they were safe. Well - we were wrong! Raccoons made a meal of it. We heard them outside at night - and even used a torch to check them out - but none of us was daring enough to walk out and scare them off. We decided it was better to let them have the bread and muffins, than risk our limbs! ;)

1 comment :

Anonymous said...

I was just journal surfing and thought I'd say HI. It sounds like y'all had fun camping even with the raccoons. You had some pretty pictures in your previous post. I will have to look up what country they were in.