Vacation Post 3 - Interstate Park

Technically it's called Interstate State Park but I find that name annoyingly redundant. Anyway, this is another neat state park this one is on the banks of the Saint Croix River. The park gets it's name from the fact that across the river you will find it's twin Interstate State Park - (Minnesota). We spent most of our time on the Wisconsin side. You will find that with a quick browse of either parks website that they are both known for rock climbing, hiking and canoeing/kayaking. Since we had a dog and a 2 year-old along we decided to stay away from the rock climbing and boating and stick to wading in the river and hiking.

Our campsite at this park was not nearly as private/secluded as our previous site on Madeline Island so we were a little disappointed. On the plus side, there were virtually no insects. None. We did not have to break out the bug spray at all.

Anway, we spend a good portion of a couple of days walking the trails which are somewhat treacherous. This left us in an interesting predicament when it came to bringing the afformentioned dog and child along. In fact, we came up with really only one configuration that worked. Henry on my (Derek) back....
...and Tina with Zoe.
The interesting thing is that I think Tina was in more danger of falling/being hurt than Henry and I were. Zoe (a very enthusiastic 66 lbs of 4 leg drive golden retreiver) had the potential to pull Tina down some pretty steep/rocky terrain in her excitement to see what was around the next corner.
Ultimately, we all survived relatively unscathed.

Weather-wise we were pretty lucky over the almost week that we were gone as it was apparently the hottest weather we had and have had all summer at home while we enjoyed nice cool weather up north. Besides that we only really had a little bit of rain which allowed us to utilize are new (bought last fall) tent.
This is a picture of Henry and I sitting in the 'vestibule' outside the tent as the last of the morning rain fell.

I'll close this post with some random pictures.

A picture documenting our desperation in trying to get Henry to take a nap. First of all, any parent reading this blog understands the importance of the midday/afternoon toddler nap. Secondly, any camper-parents out there can imagine/understand the difficulty in trying to get a toddler to take said nap in the middle of the day in a tent. All the bright sun, new sounds and exciting possibilities right outside the ten. So, after a several days of non-napping we resorted to this:
Essentially we found ourselves coming up with reasons to get in the car at a time that it had us driving back to the campsite some time around nap time, it typically did the trick.

Two more pictures. Tina and Henry coming down slide.
A picture that Henry 'took' of himself. Not bad really.