The children have been asking about camping (without the camper) for a long time and this summer we finally got it done. They would have loved a tent but Eldon had a much better idea :). We've done some trading with my parents and our end of the deal was this little enclosed cargo trailer - perfect for camping! We cleaned it up well (we hauled our tractor from Texas to Montana in it, and a bunch of chicken bugs snuck along. If you don't know that it, be very happy.), bought an air mattress, threw all our junk in and headed out. Side note-it's appalling how much stuff it takes for 2 days!
For our first trip we chose Sandstone Reservoir, a nice little lake just a few miles out of Baker. There is no trees so we got toasty during the day but once the sun went down we cooled off quickly!
Camping means fun drinks!
And junk food!
Lots of sitting around relaxing!
They were disappointed not to have sticks to carve with their knives that they all remembered to pack but then they discovered cattails.
We did lots and lots of fishing.
Little Opie Griffith there 😍.
We pulled in fish after fish!
No keepers but we didn't even care.
Who wants to clean fish anyway?!
They were so content to stay here for hours.
She still won't bait her own hook 🤦♀️. Eldon and I were so busy taking fish off and helping the kids that we barely got to fish at all.
I got another!
Yum!
Trying to cool off.
Blowing bubbles.
The sunset was stunning.
And we had to have a campfire!
Love this picture. To the East, the sun was blazing! You can clearly the 50% chance of rain in this picture 😂.
He caught 40 fish in 2 days! Of course, he was the only one that counted, which makes perfect sense since he's our little number lover.
A few weeks later (August sometime) we packed up again and ventured further. This time to 12 Mile Dam near Miles City. It's only 90 miles from us, so an hour and a half easily had us there. One more reason to love the west 😁. This primitive campground had a lovely river that was shallow enough for the kids to play in so they almost lived in it during the hot part of the day!
Supper being made
- ravioli from cans. I'm all about simple!
You can't tell but Ethan is shooing the flies away from Emily while she eats.
Our handy little trailer. Eldon has made so that we can hook up a drill battery and charge our phones and have a light. At night our beds fill it up but it's perfect for us!
So pretty!
The dam, named 12 Mile because it's 12 miles from Miles City 🤷♂️. We assume there is no fish here because we didn't get a nibble.
Playing in the river. They are building a hot tub.
Finding pretty rocks.
It was so peaceful to sit and watch the water flow!
"Look mom, I'm a surfer girl!" (She's standing on a piece of bark)
So we ended up with only 2 camping trips but had a great time. Both of them involved lots of sitting around, walks, and way to much good food. When we have the camper it's so easy to just go about life as normal since it is home but this forced us to relax more. Also, we would have had a hard time getting our camper into either one of these campgrounds!
Both of these are considered primitive campgrounds. There are sites with picnic tables and a fire ring and a few with a shelter. Several vault toilets are in both campgrounds. We couldn't find any water faucets that were turned on though, and there is no dumpsters. So basic, but perfect for what we needed!
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