There's Light At The End Of The Tunnel

School ended for students on May 26. It was a glorious feeling to run my end of month report at 1:30pm and start the long weekend at 2pm. It was even more glorious knowing come that Tuesday no menace behavior would grace my work area. It's been a year! 

The long weekend was perfect! In traditional form we went camping at Johnson Shut-Ins. By hap chance and unknowingly we ended up reserving the exact same site as last year. Turns out we LOVE the site! 

We arrived at the campground around dinner and broke out a spread of hearty appetizers. Next we took Uli the camping dog for a walk.

 Then we attended a program on owls. The program was hosted by our favorite MO State Parks naturalist, Liz. Her enthusiasm for her job is evident. Since we'd all worked Friday we decided to call it a night at 10:30pm. 

Sure we had a Saturday afternoon of storms, but we also had plenty of sunshine. Rainy afternoons in the camper are no big deal. It's like Mother Nature's invitation to play board games while sipping cocktails...and that's exactly what we did! 

King Ralph, Maddi and I played Sequence and sipped cucumber martinis. When the rain kept up all night we decided on a movie--because The Wanderlust has a ridiculously large flat screen TV. 

By Sunday morning the sun was out in full force. D, Princess A and Prince Charming joined us. They arrived donuts in hand. We welcomed them with freshly perkalated coffee. The plan was to splash around in the Johnson Shut-Ins, but the river rose and the shut-ins closed.

We staked claim on an island in the day use area's calm water. The kids drank brews, we all soaked in the sun and we noshed on sammies and chips. We ended the day with a few more games of Sequence and grilling bacon burgers. Of course no camping trip is complete without a campfire and s'mores. So that's exactly what we did. 

We were not ready for the weekend to end so...

Monday morning M, King Ralph and I drove down the road to Elephant Rocks State Park.

We hadn't been since the kids were little. Climbing around, on, up and over the rocks is fun. 

Then it was home to unpack and prepare for work days countdown..and something else worth celebrating.