Every summer as a young child, I remember taking a camping trip to a different state every summer. I have a terrible memory, but these trips always stick out prominently in my mind. Even the trips that didn't go well are the ones we have a good laugh about today. Well, I wanted to start the same tradition for our family. We had planned on going sometime during the summer to Kentucky Lake or Lake Cumberland but time got away from us and we only had time to go in September. With it being so late in the year, we couldn't go boating so we decided to save it for a different year. I didn't want to go too far since Addison is not the best on extended car rides and she's not 100% potty trained yet. Doug mentioned Indianapolis so I started researching. It had a top-rated Children's Museum and a great zoo. This was perfect since we wanted to trip to be all about activities for Addison.
We went from Thursday night to Sunday. We got in late to the campsite on Thursday. It was an eventful trip due to construction on 70 the ENTIRE way. First mishap was when Addison was close to falling asleep for the night and I wanted to stop to put a pull-up on her. Well, I wasn't paying attention to the signs that said no re-entry to the interstate for this specific exit, which just so happened to be the one I told Doug to take. Needless to say, we had to take a windy back road detour that tacked on an extra 15 minutes or so. Then when we got there, the nav system was informing us our exit was up ahead and when it told us to take it, construction blocks made it impossible to get off - apparently we passed up the temporary exit. No big deal, just take the next exit and circle back around right? Well, the next exit wasn't for another 8 miles! Doug was steaming...but he did a good job of not having his usual 'high speed come apart'. We finally arrived at the campground about 11:30pm - waaay behind schedule.
Friday we did the Canal Walk and the Zoo. Saturday we did the Museum and had my cousin Eve and her family over to the camper for a BBQ. Sunday we just played on the playground for a bit and headed home.
Every morning Addison was an absolute terror. She wouldn't listen to a word either of us said and had a full-on tantrum about every 15 minutes. We were seriously doubting going out at all! But we did and she flipped a switch and was a perfect angel once we were out. She loved it all. I'm so glad we decided to do all age appropriate things for her because it just made it so much easier and she really enjoyed herself.
So I would say our first trip was a success and we made plenty of memories to talk about in the years to come!
The Canal Walk
The dolphin show.
They had a cool observation deck within the dolphin pool.
It was awesome!
This lion just walked back and forth in front of the glass staring at us the whole time.
Our campsite.
There weren't many campers on this side of the campground - it was so nice!
Campfire and a Capri Sun - all set!
Checking out the dinosaurs.
Daddy has something like this!
Spend a long time in the house feeding the babies.
They even had a carousel.
The ice cream shoppe.
Speed racer.
Taking a flight to Egypt!
The market.
Crazy taxi driver!
Working at the cafe.
The entrance of the museum.
The dog park - she loved watching the dogs play.
On our way to the playground.
