Little granddaughter Allegra, 2 years old, had to have her turn at an overnight with Granmuddah and Granfaddah Pfun. Although both she and little baby brother Mason got an overnight last month while we were parked at Ernie and MaryEllen's cottage, it was time for her to have a special night with us all to herself.
It's easier to give total attention to an active 2 year old without the little baby brother soaking up his fair share of attention too. So I drove up to Green Bay on Monday morning to pick the little stinker up. She was more than raring to go, and had her little bag all packed, along with her car seat. We stopped for a few groceries on the way, and little Allegra picked out three pretty new flyswatters for Granfaddah. (granddaughter Chelsea somehow managed to lose ours on her visit last week) We drove into the park and found Granfaddah busy in the shop. He was able to let her explore a bit on some of the equipment.
All of the "Big Boy Toys" were in use over by the Butterfly Pond Project, so we had to steer clear of those. Not trying to be sexist in showing the grandkids "girl stuff" vs. "boy stuff" but Jameson got to crawl up and sit on the Big Boy Toys... dozers, diggers, and such fun things.
We let Granfaddah go back to his work for the rest of the day... and we went up to the campground. I put little Allegra to work picking up trash with the fun picker-upper-tool. She sure enjoyed it and we made 2 rounds of the campgrounds to pick up trash. There wasn't much to pick, so she practiced on leaves and sticks too. LOL
She worked very hard and we had to take a little break for some lunch and a well-needed nap! (for Granmuddah too) After naptime, it was time to get "road worthy" to move the rig. We were heading down to Calumet County Park to camp for five days. link:
Calumet County Park It's only a few miles south of High Cliff Park. The power work at upgrading the electric service and some of the posts was starting at High Cliff, so we figured we would bugger out and head to the other park with electric service while the wee one was visiting.
She LOVED sitting up front in the motorhome with the big big windshield to look out of as I drove it over to the dump station. It is the first time she ever rode in it, and was amazed that the rest of the "camper" was going down the road right along with us! She said: "Grandmaw, even the BATHTUB is going for ride????"
We drove up to the stop sign where the road gets very close to the "High Cliffs" and she was marveling at the stones and how close it comes to the windows for her to see them. A lot different view than when riding in the car....
It's only a short distance of about a mile to the dump station, but you would have thought we took an entire journey by the amount of excitement she showed! Once we got to the dump station, she "helped" me do the jobs... and even wore a pair of my blue gloves when I was doing the dumping. She said: "ewww it smells like POOP" No kidding, eh? In this pic below, our gloves are gone because we had pulled up the rig to the fresh water filling station... that is what is going on, in case you notice the lack of gloves in the picture.
Once our dump station chores were done, we drove over to Granfaddah's shop to wait out in the parking area till he was done for the day. Allegra got to meet Ranger Rob, and explore more of the shop. Soon it was 4 p.m. and we could hit the road!
Allegra and Granfaddah were going to take the motorhome to Calumet County Campground while I followed in the Tracker.
HEY... WAIT UP GRANFADDAH!!! WAIT FOR MEEEEE!~~!
We drove on down to the other park and pulled right into our reserved campsite. It was getting cold and windy and blasting across the lake to our shoreline site. Brrrrrrrr And then the rain came... and came... and came....
It was too wet and windy and rainy for a little one to explore the new park. So we had to be content with cooking up a pizza, playing games, and cuddling for the evening. I gave her a bath in the tub, and let her dress up in her new High Cliff tshirt that I had bought her for helping collect trash. The smallest they have is a Youth Small. On a 2 year old, it makes a great sleep shirt!
Granfaddah had to go to work the next morning, so he put on HIS own High Cliff tshirt too... don't they make a great pair??? Look.. they even have the same smiles! She hugged him goodbye and she set about the morning to have some fun with Granmuddah. It was still windy, rainy and quite icky outdoors.
We waited for the weather to clear up, so we ate breakfast, wrassled with the dogs, played with sock puppets and then baked cookies!
Of course more chocolate chips went in her mouth than went on top of the cookies.. for sure.
By the afternoon, the weather finally cleared up so we could go OUTSIDE! Yes, a 38 foot motorhome gets a little small when a rambunctious two year old is cooped up inside of it for too long. LOL
We took out her little bug cage and went hunting for something to catch. Finally we found two spiders! One daddy long legs and one tiny little guy. She insisted she was "scardt" of spiders... but she told them to stay IN the cage so she could look at them. (we set them free later before going home)
Those little bug cages are so cute... I bought one for each of the older grandtots. They come with a magnifying glass to help view each bug and a tweezers for the squeamish to handle the bugs.
We got in some playground time, and went over to the camp store to buy some treats and toys and look for postcards. (they didn't have any) Will have to stock up on postcards for the grandtots' next visits so they can send one home to their parents.
Finally.... it was NAP TIME! Whew... I needed that more than she did. LOL We napped together as snug as two bugs in a rug, and then Granfaddah came home from work. Whee heee it was joyous noise again as she rattled on and on about her day in the park.
We loaded up her gear, strapped in her car seat to the Tracker and headed on north to bring her back home. A quick stop for hot dogs and ice cream finished off Allegra's Excellent Adventure!~
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