Camping in December...

Winter has finally hit Minnesota... cold weather has moved in, we've had a few rounds of snow & Christmas is around the corner, so it seems like a good time to revist summer for a moment & relive a bit of our summer camping adventures... 

We usually get a little bit of spring camping in on the farm, but our official camping opener generally starts with Melanie's birthday, which often coincides with Memorial Day weekend. This year we hit St. Croix State Park.

Melanie's 3rd birthday (w/her new headlamp)

What girl wouldn't want her very own purple sleeping bag & purple headlamp for her 3rd b-day? Melanie was thrilled!

Playing in the river

In July, we made our annual trek west to the Black Hills of South Dakota for 9 days of camping.

First site... somewhere south of the Deadwood/Lead area.  We found a great spot down by a stream & called it home for 3 days.

For our second site, we decided to camp in a remote canyon that we love to fish... only access is by hiking... or in this case, biking!  We fish here every year but have never tried camping here but always thought it looked like a good spot.

Mike used the bike trailer to haul our stuff in about 1/2 mile down a trail leading into the canyon.  The bike in was much easier since it was downhill!  It only took about 2 trips to get the essentials in there!

We spent the next 2 days in our secluded & scenic canyon just fishing & having fun.  We caught a lot of trout too!  We only saw 1 group of fishermen in our 2-day stay.

For our last spot in the Black Hills, we decided to scout out something in the pine forests outside of Custer...

We did the hike to Harney Peak one day... Brandon did a great job hiking all the way!  Melanie rode & napped most of the way up to the peak but woke up just as we reached the top & declared "We made it!"  Not sure what part of "we" she was referring too!  I was just happy to get her out of the pack for a bit!

At the beginning of August & then again over Labor Day weekend we headed up to Superior National Forest just on the edge of the BWCA to do a little camping.  The first time we took the bikes & did some mountain biking & geocaching. 

Geocaching around Gooseberry State Park (with Lake Superior behind us)

Biking up a steep ATV trail... Melanie wanted out of the trailer to walk for a bit... Mike didn't mind lightening his load!

 

Then (the next time) over Labor Day weekend, we made sure to bring the canoe & canoed in an hour or so to one of our favorite BWCA lakes that we've canoe camped on in the past.  We had such great fishing the first day that we made the same trek the next day... only to have even a better day of fishing.

Brandon's first walleye ever... & what a walleye it was!

Stringer from Day 2

We had 2 days of phenomenal fishing... Brandon may spend a good portion of his lifetime trying to have 2 days of fishing that even come close the what we experienced!

Those were the highlights of the camping summer... we had a few other outings here & there... and don't count us out for winter camping just yet either.  Stay tuned... there very well could be a winter camping post!