Camping at Trace State Park

We took the kids on their first camping trip on Friday. We were going to leave on Saturday, but I got off work early and decided I couldn't wait. So I loaded the van and we left as soon as Tammy and the kids got home.

We went to Trace State Park in Mississippi near Tupelo about an hour and a half drive from home. It was rated as one of the top 50 state parks in the U.S. and one of the top 25 fishing state parks. We arrived about 7:30 p.m. and were able to set up camp.

Shelby told us all some scary stories in the tent. She had to use the flashlight shining up on her face to tell the story. It ended up being a recap of the movie version of Little Red Riding Hood. Noah decided he needed to tell some scary stories too.

Surprisingly, after the scary stories, the kids went right to sleep. Noah was the first one to go, crashing as soon as he laid down. Shelby took a little longer because she had trouble adjusting to the wildlife noise. It was loud until midnight from all the frogs and bugs in the area.

Once the bugs quieted down around midnight and the kids were asleep, Tammy and I were just about to fall asleep ourselves. But we became wide awake when we heard a woman in the camp site near us scream for somebody to call 911 she was getting beat up by her boyfriend. That began a domestic dispute between the two yelling and screaming at each other. It sounded to me like the lady was crazy and drunk. This went on for a while, and then we heard windows being broken. The woman was bashing the guy's truck windows in.

I finally called 911 since we were getting worried about the situation and was told two deputies were already on their way. Another camper had already called as well. It wasn't too much longer until the cops came and arrested both of them, and then a tow truck came and hauled away their vehicle, which made a lot of noise. Amazingly, the kids never woke up during it.

In the morning, I talked with one of the other campers in the area and he had gone over there to find out what's going on after also calling 911. He said the woman was crazy and had slashed the interior of the truck with a long pair of scissors and was threatening to kill the guy in his sleep. Her boyfriend had said he never touched her, she had just gone crazy all of a sudden and threw the keys to the truck into the bushes. When the cops came, they already knew the lady because they had arrested here several times before.

Needless to say it was after 1 a.m. before Tammy and I were able to go to sleep. Of course, the kids woke up about 5:30 a.m., and they had slept great.

After giving the kids something to eat, we tried to go fishing in the lake. Shelby and I were getting pumped up to try cooking one of the fish if we caught a big one. We were unsuccessful though. The lake had a lot of moss and vegetation growing near the shore, and although there were probably a lot of fish in them, we couldn't keep our lines from getting caught in the growth. There were a lot of boats in the water that maybe were having more luck than we were.

After our failed attempt at fishing, we went to go on a hike. At the entrance, there was a sign showing some of the wild life in the area that I stopped to look at. However, I didn't notice that I was standing in a fire ant hill. The picture above shows my footsteps and all those specks are little ants that started swarming all over the place. I started to feel something biting my leg and looked down and both of my feet were entirely covered in ants. They bit pretty hard too. Noah got a few on his leg as well and started crying from being bit. He's now terrified of ants.

Tammy decided she wasn't going to go on the hike now, even though she wasn't the one suffering from the ant bites. Noah still wanted to go, so Shelby, Noah and I went on about a mile hike through the forest along the lake. The kids really enjoy hiking and looking for animals.

When we got back from our hike, Tammy was in the van reading her book. We all called her a wimp, and then we came home.