Rick, Matt, Alex and I met up in Des Moines after work on Friday and then headed south (almost to the Missouri border) and set up camp at Nine Eagles State Park.
We had a reservation at the very back of the campground, the farthest from the road and at the head of the hiking trail to the lake, but when we arrived, a clan of overweight women and their uncontrolled herd of multi-racial children had taken our spot, and the two immediately next to it.
An older women yelled at us as we pulled up "That's mine."
When we got out to look at the post Rick pulled out her camping slip and wouldn't you know it, there was OUR slip tucked in behind it.
Rick told her "We reserved this site."
And she responded with "Oh, I didn't know what that slip meant. I've never been here before, I just got in the car with these guys and..."
Oh, well, that's understandable. I have trouble figuring out what brightly colored camping slips that say "
RESERVED"and have someone else's name on them mean too.
What made this even funnier was the fact that we were the ONLY TWO GROUPS in the campground that night. She offered to move to the site right next to us, placing us right in the middle of the three tent sites their group was occupying. We told her "No. Thanks. We'll just move to a different spot."
So we crossed out site #40 on our slip and moved up to the other side of the shower house to camp site #32. We were in view of the road through the park now, but happily out of sight of the, apparently illiterate, site stealers. And it ended up being a really nice spot.
We unloaded all our stuff, and Matt and I stayed behind to set up the tent, chairs, grill etc. while Rick and Alex went off in search of firewood. They failed. There was NO firewood to be found ANYWHERE near the park. So we scavenged and made do. It wasn't a roaring fire, but it was enough to make smores.
After minute steak sandwiches with chips and our smores, we hung a flashlight in the tent and played a game of Hearts while Alex (via phone) supplied us with a 90's hits and Dave Mathew's Band soundtrack, before going to bed.
The next morning we had sausage and provolone bagel sandwiches with a side of hashbrown patties for breakfast, and took the car in search of night-crawlers.
The first town we went through (Davis City) lacked a gas station, and, along main street, a lot of windows and non-boarded up doors (scary). So we turned around and headed instead for Lamoni, home of Graceland University.
Turns out, it's also home to the world's smallest HyVee, the most-garden-shed-looking Bank of the West, the
least-legitimate-looking-trailer-housed dentist office
And...
THIS DRAGON
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| We made Rick jump out of the car and run to stand by it so there would be a size reference. I love the way it's tail seems to highlight that "This guy in the great hat is RICK" (My other favorite part of this picture is that for reasons unknown to me the clouds are purple.) |
Rick and Matt tried the Lamoni Kum and Go, but they didn't sell bait. Fortunately the Casey's down the road did.
The Casey's bait fridge contained one shelf of styrofoam containers of "Canadian Night Crawlers" and a brown paper bag that said " YUCKY :( "
We did not buy the frowny face Yucky Bag, but Alex and I were tempted!
The girl at the counter didn't know of anywhere that sold firewood. So we went back to the campground with only worms.
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| This lovely red-spotted purple butterfly landed behind the car while the guys packed up the gear for fishing. |
We got our stuff together and made our way back to campsite #40 and the hiking trail where we were met again by the woman who didn't understand "Reserved".
We told her "good morning" and she told us that the kids were "making too much noise down there for the fishing to be any good"
Rick told her it was a big lake and he was sure we'd find a spot.
We met the herd coming up on our way down.
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| Matt, Rick and Alex walk out onto a little dock but decided the weeds were too thick to fish there. |
Rick, Matt and Alex found a suitable fishing spot, I wandered off to explore the woods a bit. I wandered back just in time to catch a picture of Matt's first fish. I missed the two Alex caught.
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| Matt's first fish. |
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| This Buckeye butterfly was next to the lake. I LOVE his eyespots! |
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| There was a ravenous flock of Cedar Waxwings that kept us company while we fished. This "First Year" has a brighter yellow on its belly and lacks the red wax tips of older adults that give the waxwing its name. |
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| Matt helpfully holds two fingers to mark this as his second fish. |
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| Green Sunfish |
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| Ricky catches his first fish |
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| Matt catches his 3rd fish |
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| Rick's 3rd fish |
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| Red-eared sunfish |
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| Matt's 4th fish |
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| Alex started the fish catching with two fish, I didn't get a picture of either, then opted for a more relaxed mode of fishing. |
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| Matt's 5th fish was a nice Large Mouth Bass |
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| Rick compares his bluegill (his 5th fish) to Matt's bass |
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| Rick quickly catches fish #6 - another large mouth bass |
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| Fish #6 - Large Mouth Bass |
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| I was fascinated by this Halloween Pennant Dragonfly, when I got down on eye-level with him he looked like a double-winged plane. |
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| Rick's 7th fish was a Pumpkin Seed |
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| Pumpkin Seed |
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| Rick's 8th fish was a tiny sunfish |
After fishing, we hiked around the lake. The entire trek was around 5 miles. It was a perfect day for a hike!
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| Tall Bellflower |
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| These big rusty gears were next to the lake near the spillway. I don't know what their purpose is. |
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| Calico Pennant Dragonfly (male) |
We ran into the site stealers and their herd of kids a third time as we passed by the beach. We watched the older woman who took our site and discouraged our fishing down a beer and put out (and leave) her cigarette at the bottom of the stairs where her (we assume) toddler-aged grandchild was playing.
We didn't exchange greetings as we walked past.
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| A giant swallowtail butterfly on what I think is Wild Bergamot |
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| not sure what this is? Swamp Milkweed maybe? |
After our hike we wandered back to the campground where we discovered the site stealers had packed up before heading to the beach. (YAY!)
Matt and Alex promptly crawled into the tent and passed out. Rick and I scouted around for firewood, started marinating chicken for supper and then showered and played some Ladderball! Matt and Alex woke up during our second game, so for game three we played two on two. Rick and Matt won, but only by two points.
We switched from Ladderball to cards and played another round of Hearts, and then started up a game of Phase 10.
Rick and I had a pretty successful firewood gathering expedition and got a good fire going to warm up what quickly became a chilly evening (the low was in the 50's), and I put on a sweatshirt and sweatpants (that Rick sweetly packed for me) and talked Rick into starting the fire before we got through Phase 10.
We had supper, grilled sesame-ginger-chicken sandwiches with provolone and more chips and made some more smores and sat around the fire for a while before Rick and I noticed how amazingly bright the stars were (there are NO towns of any size near Nine Eagles, so the sky is incredibly dark.) Rick and I took a short walk and did some stargazing while Matt and Alex stayed warm by the fire before going to bed.
We woke a little later to the sound of
something on the picnic table.
A flashlight spotlighted what Alex immediately named Roger the Raccoon in our campsite. Apparently, when I packed up all the food for the night I'd missed the chips.
Rick chased him off and retrieved the bag, but Roger ate all of our Mesquite BBQ chips.
Piggly raccoon.
Sunday morning we broke camp and left Nine Eagles.
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| This red-headed woodpecker was visible from out tent site |
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| We saw this little fawn and its mother on our way out of the park Sunday morning |
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| The "Dome Church" just outside Nine Eagles |
After leaving Nine Eagles we headed north back towards Des Moines. We stopped at Lakeside Casino to see if they had a Sunday Brunch.
Brunch didn't start until 11, (we got there around 9:30) but they did have a $7 Breakfast Buffet.
Close enough!
We capped off our weekend of camping with a game of Craps and some omelets and waffles and headed home.
