return to Kickapoo

Labor day weekend couldn't come soon enough this year.  Janny is starting to have demands beyond food and diapers.  Work is normal.  I was tired.  Not a sleepy tired, but more of a body, spirit, and soul tired.  So we did much resting (and I napped) on Sat and Sun.  By Mon, we felt ready for action, so we headed out to Kickapoo state park.

I dusted off the baby backpack and the bjorn and we drove off (in our car!).  Janny loved the first 15 minutes in the bjorn and then got angry.  When we decided that she wasn't going to sleep in the thing we took her out.  She was happy for 5 minutes.  So we walked back to the lake and gave her some milk.

 Do I look happy?  Dang, this thing plus Clara (20 lbs, still) felt heavy.

We walked the riverview trail until the first road crossing.  Not a bad first hike, babies!

 We had some lunch at the lake restaurant.  Three other families from TCBC were there with their big kids.  They had just hiked along the river and were about to canoe on the lake.  Clara and I spotted an albino trout [we learned from the canoe guy that the lake is stocked with these fish twice a year.  Opening day after stocking is apparently super crowded with fisherpersons.].

After lunch we headed down to the river to play in some water.  The summer has been very dry so the water level is low.  This was a great thing for us because we could walk into the stream bed and throw rocks.

 Who likes rocks and sticks and water more, Clara or daddy?  We both had a blast.  Some rocks were heavy for Clara!

Janny and Jill hung out by the shoreline and played with leaves.

Clara was so sad to leave at 2p.  She cried and cried before falling asleep on the ride home.

Final notes:  this was our first trip to Kickapoo since we moved back.  10 years ago (seriously?) we were going out there with Todd for mountain biking.

I sometimes wish that the U of I were located close to one of the handful of nice locations in the state.  But Jill points out that they'd be much more crowded.  So there's that.