Camping in Kansas

When you think camping, you think Kansas, right?

Well, me either. But it turns out that much of Kansas actually has hills and trees -- so it's ok. We and the Groves were going to head down to Isabella, MO -- where Mark's mom owns some land -- but due to a whole bevy of reasons we ended up camping about 30 miles west of Olathe on some land where some friends of theirs are building a house.

We had a nice fire pit, and Mark had bought one of those tripod grill hangers from Cummins Tools which worked out real well. The grill part itself is relatively cheap, but it'll last a little while and they are easily replacable. Worked for the brats, toasting the buns, the coffee pot, the sausage in the morning, and toasting muffins.

We went to Clinton Lake up by Lawrence for a few hours... the girls and the kids waded while Mark fished. I skipped some rocks, help teach Nathanial how to cast and how to skip rocks... baited his hook a few times. Cassie collected muscle shells (she loves collecting things. Rocks. Shells. Sticks. Acorns. Bugs.)

Then we went back to camp and did some target shooting with various rifles and pistols with targets against the large dirt piles that had been dug out for the house foundation. Fairly obliterated the 2x4 scraps we had stapled the targets to. The kids got to shoot their great-grandfather's .22 rifle (with lots of supervision, of course). And I re-discovered that a .38 pistol kicks.

I started the fire with the magnesium block and some dead cedar needles & prarie grass. Dinner was good, and we had s'mores, of course, afterward. Some lightning, but no rain to speak of, moved in for the evening and we had maybe a half an hour to fiddle around with the guitars before we hit the sack.

Then I went to Cummins and got a tripod grill ;-) And a pellet gun for $20. Mark's killed 3 varmints with his so far.