Annual Family Camping Trip

Last weekend was our family's annual (ok we've done it twice now, but it does seem to be a thing) camping trip.  This year we camped at Pickerel Lake in northeastern South Dakota.  I hadn't been camping there since I was about 10--so it was brand new to me.  Rob and I had the week off so we went up to Estelline a few days ahead of our camping trip.  I finally got to go visit the Veterans Memorial Park that they installed a couple of years ago.  It really is a beautiful little park for such a small town and it didn't hurt that the sun was setting as we were walking through.

The first day we were at Pickerel was beautiful--weather wise--but we couldn't check in until afternoon, so it was a lovely evening around the fire.  Rob and I took the dog for a walk down to the "marina" that they have for putting boats in and along the trail that goes from the boat launch to the campgrounds along the shore of the lake.  It was really pretty watching the sun go down through the trees over the lake.

The next day of our trip was hot, but I did get to go swimming.  The lake is pretty nice compared to our swimming options down here in reservoir land, and the cold water felt really good.  It clouded up that afternoon and threatened rain, even rumbled and lightninged off in the distance, but it didn't rain until the next morning.  And then it rained off and on all day.  It stopped raining long enough for dad to cook lunch (fish they caught when the weather was changing the night before and pancakes) and then it rained very lightly for a while.  Rob and I took a hike up to the top of a nearby hill that had views of the surrounding area (in the photo below you can just make out the lake). 

Then later on that day half of us went to Fort Sisseton.  It rained very steadily the entire time we were at Fort Sisseton, but I did get my fill of Dakota territory history

It stopped raining in time for us to have supper and a fire that night and rained again in the morning before we packed up to head back home to Iowa.  Aside from the rain, it was a lovely trip.  More photos of our trip can be found here.