Camping at Fort Mountain State Park

We returned yesterday from our second attempt at tent camping with a toddler. We had another great time. In fact, we had such a good time that we will be going on our third and final camping trip of the summer in about a week and a half. This time we camped at Fort Mountain State Park which is in the Northwestern part of Georgia, near Tennessee. We camped for four nights, Monday through Friday. It rained about half of our trip, so I see our trip divided into two parts: what we did when it was sunny and what we did when it rained. While it was sunny...

-- Eli "power" mowed. He loves his lawn mower at home, he pushes it all around the yard. We do circles around the outside of the house; I think we've worn a path in the grass. Fortunately, we thought to bring the mower and it went over well, he "mowed" the entire campsite and even lifted his mower up the little ledge to the field above our campsite (hence the power mowing, I felt like it had turned into an extreme sport).






-- Eli explored our campsite, and of course located and touched all our signs.




-- Elijah defaced State Park flora (oops!) I had to explain after he picked this leaf that we don't pick things when we camp. But, he was so darn cute offering it to me as a present.




-- We went for bike rides. We borrowed Scott's parent's trailer to bring our bikes with us. Unfortunately, the biking wasn't what we expected. The camp site trails were a little too steep. But, we gave it our best shot.





-- We went hiking. The loop around the lake was absolutely beautiful and a pleasant, leisurely walk.





We also hiked up to the little waterfalls at the park.




-- Eli played at the park's playground.



-- We swam and played in the sand at the swimming beach. You can see it as the little patch of sand on the left in this picture. We actually camped in the closest campsite to the beach which was really helpful for impromptu swimming.



And, while it rained...

-- We hung out in our tent, sleeping, reading and rough-housing. Eli took a marathon nap during one of the storms, I guess the sound of the rain and being in a tiny enclosed space with Mommy and Daddy is pretty cozy. And, of course in our tent we got to hang out with our spider friends who took shelter between our tent and our rain cover. Eli would wake up and giggle and count them every morning.







-- We explored the local area. One night, the storm hit before dinner, so we drove into Dalton (about a half an hour away) and had dinner at Chick-Fil-A, which Eli devoured. We picked Chick Fil-A because they all have play places. But, unfortunately, and unusually, this one had it's playground outside. So, afterwards, not wanting to return to the tent so soon, we found a Starbucks. It was inside the Kroger and we sat and drank some coffee and milk (for Eli). It was so funny, Eli had a ball at Kroger. He played in the aisles, flirted with the Baristas, and "drove" his car cart all over the store. Who would've thought that Chick Fil-A and Kroger, two destinations that we have in Peachtree City could be so entertaining!

We woke up the last full day at the park to another dismal day, so we decided to hop in the car and drive to the closest State Park, after exploring another local town. We drove to Amicalola Falls State Park via Ellijay. In Ellijay, we had a nice lunch at a Mexican restaurant. Then, after lunch we found some fudge for me and Eli and then a coffee shop. The coffee shop was adorable, the coffee was good (especially with the fudge) and Eli loved it's rocking chair.




Fortunately, by the time we got to Amicalola Falls it had cleared up, so we were able to get out and explore. We played at their playground, hung out with orange cones, met a very friendly camp kitty (which made us miss Kodi!) and hiked to the falls.













-- We spent an evening under a picnic shelter. When we got back from Amicalola Falls, it was still clear, so Scott started cooking dinner. As Scott cooked, a storm brewed. We took our dinner, books, and games and sought the relative safety of one of the park's picnic shelters. We had a great time, and played our second game of Scrabble with Eli. Since he knows his letters, we tell him which letters we want off our trays to make the next word and where to place them on the board. He also gets to choose our next letters from the bag. Helping us play entertained him for half of our game, and he entertained himself for the other half. We actually got to play an entire Scrabble game while he was awake -- pretty amazing!