About 10 months ago, I reserved this weekend at Roche-a-cri. Then came the marching band schedule and Asa had to perform Friday evening. Then Asa got his work schedule and he was scheduled for Saturday (he forgot to ask off). Then Cal got his schedule and he was also scheduled for Saturday (he also forgot to ask off). All week I was undecided as to whether we would still go camping. Roche-a-cri is over 2 hours from home (it’s halfway between Wisconsin Dells and Wisconsin Rapids) so going back and forth wasn’t an option.

In the end we decided it would be good for Asa and Cal to try staying home adult-free and that the rest of us could still have fun even though they weren’t with us.

We arrived late last night–probably too late because it was after dusk and we saw a few deer crossing the road (in other words, dangerous driving conditions) and it was dark getting into the campground (never fun). We got set up fairly quickly but then realized we didn’t have water at the site. Doh! I know I’ve done this at least 3 times now! You’d think I would learn my lesson.

In the end it was too late to think of packing everything up and getting water so we just filled out water bottles and a 5 gallon water carrier we used to flush the toilet. The night was uneventful and when we woke up in the morning I made pancakes. After breakfast we packed everything up and went and got water. It was a debate as to whether we could live without water in the tank (for the record, yes, we can but why would we want to?).

After we got water, we came back to the campsite and surprised the kids with Make-its, a surprise ball thing that you make yourself with resin.

While those were drying, we went for a hike to see the park. The first stop was the petroglyphs. These were pretty hard to see and not as impressive as what we saw out west but they were still cool.

Then we took the stairs to the top of Roche-a-cri Mound. This was pretty strenuous for some of us and all of us had Jello legs when we got back down.

After a snack break, we went on one last hike. Nova was not happy because she felt she had hiked enough but she got a second wind and hiked the 0.34 miles to Chickadee Rock. Dad carried her back out from the rock.

We saw lots of evidence of chickadees here. They make holes in trees for their homes.

Back at the campsite, we had lunch then the girls walked to the campground playground and Nole, Giorgio and I played Molkky. Nole won twice.

Then we played Taboo on Giorgio’s phone. You give clues but you can’t mention any of the “taboo” words listed below the word you want the other players to guess. Nole won that game too.

I set up hammocks and the guys played some “throw and stick”.

We played more Molkky, this time with the girls and again, Nole won!

We played a few more board games like Shifting Stones and Uno and then had a fire before making dinner. Nova took some funny pictures of everyone.

We added some “colorful flames” packets to the fire.

Later, Giorgio taught us a card game called Assassin or Wink Murder which is like Mafia or Frogger. We taught him “Up your butt”. Nole won that too.

We roasted some marshmallows in ice cream cones over the fire for dessert and then the girls debated for a half hour over movie choices before finally deciding on Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and then turning it off after a half hour and going to bed.

There were a lot of oak trees around our campsite and acorns are dropping like crazy, hitting the car, the camper and everything else. I wore my hat for protection, just in case but in the end none of us got hit! There were very few mosquitos or yellow jackets to bother us. The nights were cool but we were warm enough in our sleeping bags and with some propane heat.

Asa and Cal managed just fine at home. As the kids get older it will only get harder to schedule time all together. I’m kind of torn about next summer because some of the kids would rather not travel like we have in past years.

Here is the map of states we (at least 3 kids and a parent) have visited. Green is “seen” and blue is “not yet seen”. 2024 is supposed to be the Northwest trip.