So on the weekend of SEPTEMBER (took me a while to post this one) 27th-29th, we visited our 19th state park. It originally wasn’t intended to be Bonham; we wanted to take the kids to Dinosaur Valley that weekend, but a line of forecasted thunderstorms sent us farther north. Regardless of location, we were super excited for this trip because Daddy would be joining us AND we were road testing the pop up camper for the first time! And because we would have the convienences of the camper, we decided to bring Skye along for the first time since Nathan and I were just dating!

We arrived after dark Friday night and successfully picked a spot, backed in, “popped up,” and had the kids tucked in for the night all within an hour. Not bad! Major lesson learned on that event was to have headlamps. Holding flashlights and trying to use our hands slowed us down. Before everyone went to sleep, I snapped some pics of how we arranged everyone. Cozy, comfortable and effective!

The following morning, we loved waking up to seeing the view of the lake and we were content with our in-the-dark campsite choice.

Daddy cooked breakfast while the kiddos played tic tac toe with collected sticks and rocks

The kids desperately wanted to hit the small lake’s swim area, but it was still too overcast and chilly. We opted first for a quick 1 mile hike to check out some of the park’s well known CCC structures.

With more time to kill before it was warm enough to swim, we left Skye in the comfort of the camper after lunch and took the kids out on the pier to fish

We had so MUCH fun fishing! Considering we were only prepared with 2 kiddie rods rigged up with bobbers and treble hooks baited with balled up bread, Ashlyn and Archer each caught a little perch and Weston had a lot of bites. It was thrilling to see them so excited during their first honest attempt at fishing!

We fished until we ran out of bait and the weather was finally right for swimming. Which was actually short lived because the kids let a float get away from them in the breeze and Daddy’s attempt to retrieve it didn’t work out. Incidentally that was the only picture of swimming time I took.

After a very active day outside, we loved being able to get the kids cleaned up before dinner time and having the indoor space and comfort of the camper for them to play games and read in. Definitely an upgrade on tent camping!

Bonham State Park is very small. Which was very appealing for not attracting many visitors. There were very few full hook up sites and about an equal amount of tent sites. There was a new bath house facility, but it was located what I found to be pretty far from all of the sites. The tent sites being the farthest away at that. However, we could definitely put this one on the visit again list.

And number 19 unfortunately wrapped up 2017’s park visits. With a total of 6 accomplished. Not the 9 I was hoping for. There’s a ton of excuses for why it didn’t work out, but I’ll just skip straight to the part where I say that this year I hope to recoup with a total of 12 visited for 2018. I’ll even go as far to put a goal 12 list on this  beginning of 2018 post! 😊

In no particular order:

• Dinosaur Valley
• Lake Bob Sandlin
• Martin Creek Lake
• Huntsville
• Enchanted Rock
• Devil’s Sinkhole
• Lake Mineral Wells
• Fort Parker
• Old Tunnel
• Cleburne
• Cooper Lake
• Cedar Hill

Wish us luck!

-Lindsay