On The Mormon Trail!

This past weekend, I took Asher for his first real camping trip, a father-son adventure we have been talking about for a while.  My first choice of destination, the forest where I went camping a few weeks back, was closed due to flooding damage. I did a little research, and we decided to go to Mormon Trail Lake, which is about 65 miles southwest of here in Adair County.  We loaded up the pickup, said goodbye to Sarah and Eva, and headed out. On the way, we stopped at the Iowa Aviation Museum in Greenfield.

We got to the lake and set up camp:

..and we did a little fishing:

After a night of marshmallows and ghost stories, we spent most of yesterday swimming.  Asher has lost his fear of the water, and had a blast. In fact, we swam for 4 hours!  He was really brave.

As you can see from the pictures, the weather was perfect.  In fact I am suffering from the sunburn of my life today.  Mormon Trail is a pretty nice lake, and a fun place to go.  To put it nicely, the campground experience was not always the peaceful solitude I prefer in a camping destination, but hey, this is Iowa.  Anyway, Asher had a wonderful time, and he is really excited to go camping, fishing, and swimming more often.

As for the name of the lake:  as a Utah native, I was suffering from Mormon history withdrawal (just kidding). Mormon Trail park is home to a restored prairie and a couple of interpretive plaques in a style and typeface familiar to anyone who has ever been to Temple Square.  It was kind of cool to see the ruts from the pioneers, and to look out at the terrain they covered in the first phase of their trip from Nauvoo to Salt Lake.  According to the plaque, the stretch through Western Iowa was probably the easiest and most pleasant part of the trip!