First Family Camping Trip

Yup, you read that right. First family camping trip. James and I camped several times before we had children, and we took Alex camping once when he was 1, but that wasn't so difficult because my family was there, so we had an adult/child ratio of 6-to-1. But this trip, this was just the 4 of us. A 1-to-1 ratio. Unless you count the dog as a child, of course, in which case us adults were outnumbered.

Our only requirements for a campground was that it allow dogs and have a good swimming beach for the kids. A recommendation from a friend led us to Savanna Portage State Park in McGregor, MN (about 3 hours north of us). We went into this trip completely blind, since we knew nothing about the area or the park at all. We were pleasantly surprised to arrive and find the campgrounds not very full at all! (Sometimes it's good that James' days off are in the middle of the week.)



We borrowed a screen tent from a friend that would eventually get put up over the picnic table, but the first night we were there, we just didn't care!


There was a little path behind our campsite that led down to the lake. (Seriously, it was only like 100 feet or so). The lake was so clean and pretty! If we wanted a better look at it, we could walk down the campgrounds road a couple more campsites, and there was this beautiful dock to walk out on.
And yes, you are seeing correctly. It was August, and we were wearing sweatshirts and pants the whole time! In fact, at night it got down to about 50...good thing we brought extra blankets! (Do you remember that I mentioned a good swimming beach was a requirement for the campground? Yeah, didn't get to use it at all this week!)


A really cool thing about Savanna Portage State Park is that it is on the Continental Divide, meaning basically that all the water to the east of the Divide flows into Lake Superior, and all the waters west flow into the Mississippi River. The distance between the East Savanna River and West Savanna River at this point is only 5 miles, which is the closest that Superior waters and Mississippi waters get. This made for the best spot for early traders and native americans to portage their canoes across. It also made for a great view!

If you ask Alex and Bella what their favorite part of the trip was, they would both tell you S'MORES! Well okay, Alex would say s'mores. Bella would just say "pink marshmallows", because after seeing James light one on fire while trying to roast it, she refused to eat a toasted one. Of course, the distance that we were roasting from could have had something to do with the bad toasting: