We are in full swing of summer and this has by far been the busiest we've ever been in June. It's a good kind of busy though. We decided, like many, to head to South Dakota for our grand summer vacation. We've had intentions in the past to take a family camping vacation but have quickly learned if it doesn't happen right away it probably won't. So we packed up and headed out for the week on our boys' first real camping trip.
After checking out our trip, take a trip of your own and see my freelens loving friends and check out all their beautiful images for for the month of June. Continue clicking on links ...till you get back here. It's bound to be a great ride leaving you in aww and inspired. Up next is, April Christopher of Little Tree Photography Click HERE
The Depot Mitchell, SD
The boys had asked us this year if we could take a trip. We were all about it, and asked where they would like to go. Mind you they are 8,6, and 3 so we weren't in too much danger of any crazy response. They all agreed they wanted to go to the mountains and the ocean. My husband's discussion started with, "Where should we go to get both those in?" Wooowh, let's start small and then build. They've never seen either, so really we could get away with anything and then build to the big guns in future years. So we did just that and booked our camp ground in the Black Hills of South Dakota. And of course the boys are at that perfect age to make all the stops along the way. First up, the corn palace! They thought it was pretty cool. To top off our afternoon in a palace of corn, lunch at a working train depot where the boys had buffalo burgers for the first time.
Pierre, SD
We stayed in a hotel the first night about 8 hours drive, to break up the trip a bit. Great thing about weekday travel is that we had the whole pool area to ourselves. Then we headed in the morning to Walldrug and finally, 14.5 hours later, we landed in our camp site. The boys had a blast collecting firewood, playing with the neighbor kids in the hammocks, nature tic tac toe, whittling sticks, collecting rock, and of course the campfires.
We did all the usual tourist stuff like, Reptile Gardens, gold panning, Mystery Spots, Mt. Rushmore, geode cracking, Mammoth Site digs, cave mining....
...but nothing beat the hiking, kayaking, and fishing at our campground.
Sorry for the bombardment of photos there. It amazes me how when we remove ourselves from the crazy buzz of everyday life; when we take away the distractions of the ever growing to-do list; place ourselves in a spot where work is not an option... we can focus more on the things we love to do. For me it's being out with my boys, "bored in nature", and of course freelensing. I played with my kiddos, and freelensed more this week than I probably have in the last 4 months. And if felt AMAZING! Sadly it had to end but I'm hoping remember that feeling and make it happen more often.
Of course we had to make a short side trip on the way home to visit the Badlands. It's like an other planet.
Be sure to go back up and click on the link to visit all the other blogs of this amazingly talented group of women. Till next month, cheers.