home again home again

we left michigan last friday, and after looking at the atlas, thought it might be nice to drive along the ohio river and take a secondary road through the mountains of wv to our destined camp ground. after all, it actually looked shorter than the interstate route. the ohio river drive was on a nice unpopulated highway, but once we crossed the river and caught 250 through the mountains, we had a rather long, windy, arduous drive ahead.



beautiful though it was, we became eager to reach the campground before too late, especially once tristan threw up in the car after a frustrated jag of crying. we pulled over immediately. lucky for all of us, there were a group of horses and ponies at the side of the road. this took tristan's mind off of his misery, and he fell asleep soon after being placed back in the car.





it was 10:00 pm by the time we reached audra state park. we were not feeling very optimistic as we drove through the packed campground. we eventually discovered the last vacant site, rocky and under renovation, with a huge gravel pile in the middle of it. i sat at the picnic table and wept, while dan convinced me that we should just unload and stay there, as we could probably move to freshly vacated site the next morning. so stay we did, setting up the tents in the dark, tristan awake and pointing at the moon, dinner on the campstove at midnight. the next morning i crawled out of my tent and admired the gravel pile, and immediately took a walk through the campground seeking a new site.



luckily i found a lovely riverside site just as its prior tenants were about to vacate it, and we quickly transferred our gear. dan and tashi didn't even disassemble her tent, simply carrying it through the campground to it's new home.







we proceeded to have a lovely 24 hour vacation-from-our-vacation, a nice warm down after the busy two weeks on the great lakes visiting our respective families.







we ate delicious meals cooked on an open fire, lounged on blankets in the shade, swam in the cool, clean river and floated as the strong current swept us downstream. tristan had a blast piling up rocks, plopping them in the water and holding on to us as the river swirled past.







home now for several days, we are getting back into our routines and feeling the slight seasonal shift as august approaches. we're hoping for at least one more camping adventure before the busy autumn arrives.