Kickapoo Cavern State Park

Matt took the week of spring break off so that we could spend some family time together.  Matt has been anxious to go camping as a family and we figured this was a great time to go.  Waiting to check the weather to see which days would be best to camp limited us on what was available.  Matt found some openings at Kickapoo Cavern State Park.  It offered tours of a cave which sounded fun for the kids.  We decided to go for two nights; Tuesday and Wednesday.  We invited the older Herrera cousins since Cynthia was due to have a baby in less than a month. 

We ended up taking some time packing up the cars and left later on Tuesday than we had planned, and the trip took longer than expected.  We ended up arriving around 3 pm.   Since we missed lunch Matt quickly set up camp and started the coals for dinner. The hobo dinners of hamburger and sausage went over pretty well and filled everyone up.  After dinner we went to Stuart cave to see the bats emerge around dusk.  It was really interesting (and a little stinky) to see about 3 million bats swirl around the cave opening and fly out to search for food.   We topped off our night with dutch oven peach cobbler and some "scary" story telling.  

The day was warm, but the evening was pretty comfortable and calm.  Our night started off well with Asher going down fairly easily.  Everyone else went down around midnight.  About 2 AM a crazy wind storm blew in, and at first got a little warmer, but as the storm continued it got colder and colder.  Matt had to get out and stake down the tents a couple of times because the wind was blowing so hard.  We could hear other campers around us getting out and staking down their tents and one group packed up and left at about 3 in the morning.  The girls were up with the crazy storm and started talking and turning on their light. Asher woke up 3 times, once before the storm and a couple of times during the storm.  One time during the night Matt had to stand up and rock him because he was not going back to sleep. We kept changing him from playpen to sleeping bag to keep him warm. Our best sleep of the night ended up being from 6-8 in the morning. The morning was pretty cold and the wind continued throughout the day.  We made lots of hot chocolate to keep us warm.  Matt made a yummy breakfast of bacon, sausage, and eggs to put in breakfast tacos.  After a fairly sleepless night for most of us, Matt and I decided to spend most of the day there and go home to sleep in our beds that night.  

When we had read about the cave tours we didn't realize that there were limited spots that had to be reserved ahead of time.  When checking into the park, they told us they were all booked up for Wednesday.  Luckily, with the crazy wind storm, a number of people didn't show up for their reservations, so Matt was able to take Kylee,  Brayden, David, and Tatiana on the tour.  It turned out it would have been too difficult for the younger kids anyway, but the older ones thought it was really neat.