The best thing about camping is that it wipes the kids out. They were literally peeling the wallpaper off the walls on Friday before we left but when we got back, they were all about going to sleep. We camped at Frontenac State Park for two nights.
Lots of wildlife this time. Racoons literally walked up to our campfire as if they were used to people tossing food at them. They scoured our picnic tables cleaning up every scrap of food.
The roof over the picnic tables was home to dozens of bats. In the afternoon they squeaked and rattled around up there. We could look up and see their little ears sticking out from over the two by four between the rafters. When the sun went down they all flew out and just went to town on all the bugs at our camp ground. Frontenac is up on the bluffs and there is no standing water near by to breed mosquitos so I only saw one or two the entire trip. Trains go by all night long on the Wisconsin side of the river and blow their whistles. Kind of a neat sound and beats the living shit out of airplanes.
Figured out the thing to occupy children while camping is to hunt for bugs. There was a huge variety in the woodlands and praries of Frontenac. Cicadas, grasshoppers, crickets, ladybugs, dragonflies, dady long leg spiders. That occupied the kids for hours and next time we'll want to bring an insect guide along because there were lots I couldn't identify. One had what looked like a fake head bobbing up and down on its tail/stinger structure.
We swam three days in a row at the beach at Hok-si-la park in Lake City, about 5 miles south of Frontenac on highway 61. The beach is nice but the water gets deep quick. The kids had a great time swimming there, but the deep water made it so I had to be within 5 feet of Frank at all times. Frank found some mussel shells on the last day and clutched them in his hands the whole time he was swimming. He kept them the entire way home and we had to pry them from his sleepy hands when we took him out of his car seat for a bath.
1:44:28 AM 
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