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Consider this quote from Abe Lincoln
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
It was a quiet weekend at the farm. We don’t get away much any more so it was time to load the kids up and go for a little weekend away. Of course I’m a strict schedule keeper when it comes to going places so I informed the family early in the week that we would pull out of home at 9 a.m.
At 11 a.m. Friday morning I looked at the wife again with that “are you ready to go now?” look, which was answered with the “ask me again and you’ll die in your sleep” look. At 11:30 a.m. we pulled out of the driveway with the trusty Chevy hooked onto the camper and headed for the lovely Viking Lake near Stanton.
After a brief stop in Stuart for air in the tires we headed south and pulled into the Fareway in Greenfield for supplies. I neglected to mention that the boy was very excited about going and along the way from Stuart sitting directly behind me caused enough commotion to elicit from me the immortal words; “don’t make me pull this thing over”! So looking for a little piece and quiet I snuck into the store with the kids and wife in the truck watching a movie. I made it through the first half of her list when she appeared in the coffee isle. It was going to be a long weekend I could tell.
We headed west on Highway 92 towards Atlantic, or more precisely Hwy 91 when we encountered road closures that sent us down Highway 148 to Corning. The rest of the trip down was uneventful, arriving a little after 1 p.m. at Viking Lake State Park. Being an aficionado of Springbrook I figured it would be just like every state park. I was pleasantly surprised as it was beautifully set in the valley and wonderfully modern. We spent the next 15 minutes driving the loop to look for that perfect campsite. This park definitely needs to be one where you use the DNR reservation system. Finding our own little piece of heaven we backed the camper in and began to set up our camp.
The next couple of days were a blur between finding time to take naps and sitting around the fire. A few observations should be made about my camping neighbors however. The family next too us were tenting it. A cool way to spend the weekend, except that their children ages 2 and 4 must have been very confused as they parents spoke in third party all of the time correcting the little people on things mommy and daddy want them to do.
There was the little girl across the way who just learned to ride her bike this weekend and bedecked with a red Dora helmet rode around and around and around the loop we were on saying “Hi” every time she went by. I begin to wonder if she had some memory loss issues from the heat on her bike helmet as she kept forgetting she said “Hi” to me on her last trip by. This in itself wouldn’t have been so bad except for the fact that the middle child, at every opportunity, kept reminding me how much fun it would have been if I would have brought her bike down. And then proceeded to visit every campsite taking time to talk to people who had bike racks on their campers, asking if she could bring her Dad down to look so he could put one on the camper to bring her bike next time.
There of course was time for hiking, swimming and fishing, and evenings around the campfire listening to the trains run south of the camp along the BNSF mainline.
Regardless of all the fun and strange things that happened this weekend, I think everyone had a good time and we’ll probably go back there again…this time with a bike to two.
See you next week….Remember, we’re all in this together.