Occoneechee State Park

On St. Patty's Day weekend, hubby and I went camping with some dear friends of our who we hadn't seen in over a year. They are located over on the North Carolina coast, and since we are just outside of D.C., we wanted to find a place to go camping that was in between the both of us. Four hours away from both of us was Occoneechee State Park in Southern Virginia. This park is located near the John H. Kerr Reservoir, and the campsite we reserved was right near the water. I have to say, this was one of the nicest state parks I've visited. The facilities include a bath house with showers that were always clean. And the campsites themselves were very well maintained and had a picnic table and a fire ring. Some pictures from are weekend are below.

The bath house.

View of the reservoir from our campsite.

View of our campsite.

Flowers near our campsite.

They have several short trails that you combine together to hike the distance that you want.

The park is named for the Native Americans that once lived in the area.

There also used to be a plantation on the property. Unfortunately, it's not there anymore due to a fire.

Overall, we had a great time. A lot of people camping also had their boats with them so they could go fishing in the lake. We saw a wonderful variety of birds, including some beautiful eastern bluebirds, red-headed woodpeckers, and tufted titmice. This is a great state park, and I highly suggest you go if you get the chance. You can reserve camping sites online, but if tents aren't your thing, you can rent a cabin.

Day 2-Road Trip to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks

So, after a good night of camping in Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, we woke up and cooked ourselves some breakfast. The tire store wasn't going to be open until 9 am, so we thought we would go explore the park a little. Neither Kelly or I had ever seen any of the Great Lakes and now we had a chance to take a look at Lake Michigan!!

Here is what we saw.

It was sort of a gray morning, but we still had fun exploring. The shore of the lake was covered with smooth round stones. Here is the hubby skipping stones.

And the hubby collecting stones to make me something sweet.

And because I love fish, I can't forget this.

Eventually we made our way back to the tire store, thinking things would be quick. Not quite. We there much longer than we wanted to be, but we finally made back on the road.

Next state up, Illinois.

And then Iowa.

And Iowa was actually very lovely. Lots of rolling green hills. This is as far as we would make it on our 2nd day. We decided to set up shop at Lake Anita State Park. It was a week night, but there were a lot more people there than we would have thought, which was nice. Here is a picture of our campsite with our tent pitched.

A quick picture that evening of the view from our campsite.

And a picture of the hubby and I, happy to be on this great vacation together.

Here is the website to Lake Anita State Park in Iowa: http://www.iowadnr.gov/parks/state_park_list/lake_anita.html

I really have to commend Iowa's Department of Natural Resources. They had the best website as far as information for their parks go.

Up next, day 3, we make finally make it Wyoming!!