Katie is sleeping off her camping hangover. Both of us always come home from a camping trip feeling a bit hungover, head stuffed with sights and smells, sleep deprived.

A little damp.

Don’t laugh at me. Mama’s hair looked like this too.

Since she’s unavailable I guess it’s up to me to tell you about our latest camping adventure. It was less adventure this time, given we just went up the road to our local state park. Still, our site was secluded and the park was mostly empty the first night, so we could imagine it was just us out there in the woods. We even heard coyotes yipping far away.

We were glad they weren’t any closer.

Just like camping in the deep woods. Sort of.

High above our tent was a tree filled with wild grapevines heavy with ripe fruit attracting lots of robins. We enjoyed watching them fly up there to eat. We also had a tree right next to the tent that was a squirrel jungle gym. It was full of the little guys running up and down the trunk, then out onto the branches to eat acorns. Lots of acorns also fell (or were thrown) on us and the tent.

Looks like a good lunch up there!

Katie and I were both entertained. It doesn’t take a lot to make us happy.

Down at the park headquarters someone planted a whole lot of sunflowers. Katie and I noticed them as we drove in, so we went back there the next morning to see them up close.

Pretty!

They were simply amazing. Some of them had been eaten by deer down to little sunflower stumps. But hundreds had grown to maturity, their heads following the sun. I particularly liked the way the sun looked shining through their petals. The shapes were beautiful, even from behind.

Following the sun.

And during our campout we had visitors too! Peep and her mom Wendy stopped by for a walk. We always have a good time when we get together.

Hey Katie! Does your mom always take this many pictures?

It’s obvious the chairs were meant for the girls to enjoy. So they did.

Later in the day we wandered down to the beach to see if there would be a sunset. We got there about an hour before official sunset, but the light was already pretty.

Looks like fall visited this tree early.

I took a ton of photos as the sun dropped. The clouds turned a lovely pink and were reflected in the still water.

Reflections of a beautiful day at the park.

And while that was happening, further to the west the sky was turning gold.

The sun leaves a bit of gold behind.

It was hard to choose what to shoot. So I quickly took pictures of it all. Including, of course, my Katie-girl who waited patiently for me to finish.

Ready for my closeup mama!

She only huffed at me a little bit and then only because I hadn’t spent enough time focusing on her in the golden light. A princess knows when the light is perfect and will show off her best features.

Once it began to get dark Katie and I headed back up the hill to the car. I was loading her into her crate in the back, when glancing over my shoulder I saw this:

Surprise!

Obviously Katie had to be patient again. Even she was in awe of the moon, and she didn’t huff once.

I think this was our last camping adventure for the season. Time to put the camping gear away for awhile. We’ll have to be satisfied with dreaming about next year’s adventures.

Katie says she can’t wait.

What do you mean the season’s over mama??