Camping road trip – Iowa

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A couple of weekends ago, we decided to do a last-minute camping excursion!  We had a birthday party in Iowa, and were planning on staying with family/friends, or possibly getting a hotel.  Then, just a day or two before leaving, we decided to make it into a camping trip!  I normally do a lot of the packing, but with our work schedules, my husband was in charge.  (I made him a list and threw some things in at the end though hahaha, he doesn’t really like planning things)

We left on a Friday night, and it was POURING RAIN.  The weather looked like it wasn’t going to be letting up anytime soon, and we had a late start to our trip since I had to work anyways.  So, needless to say, we weren’t so crazy about the idea of setting up our tent in the middle of the night and in the middle of the storm.  Instead of pitching our tent, we just set up our things in the back of our minivan for the night :)  A full-sized mattress fit perfectly with the seats stowed.  Here’s a look of our setup afterwards… mess kit dishes drying from a mesh bag on the left of the picture, and other sleeping bags/etc. scattered throughout.  We had a small cooler and a couple of bags of food that also fit in the car, near the door.

Although Friday night was fun, and a good story to tell later, our second night was so much more enjoyable.  We moved onto a campground between Cedar Rapids and Des Moines called Rock Creek State Park.  It was a very nice campground.  At first when we pulled in, it looked crazy crowded, which it was nearly full in the RV/electric sites.  Once we drove over to the non-electric camp sites, there were a lot more areas to pick from.  There are so many gorgeous sites right along the water.  We ended up pitching our tent on a site closer to the woods since we didn’t want to pile too close to everyone else.  The sites themselves were relatively close together compared to some other places we’ve camped recently, but since the campground wasn’t full everyone had plenty of space.

We hiked around a bit on the campground, and enjoyed watching the sunset over the water.  So many beautiful wildflowers, and animals.

Then, we decided it was time for S’mores before calling it an early night.  It was really cool, we could hear coyotes howling in the night.

We cooked a quick breakfast using a pre-made pouch from our last trip of Rice and Chicken.  We always bring tortilla wraps and use those instead of plates for our meals.  Super quick, super easy, and very tasty!

Rock Creek State Park had the standard pit bathrooms at as well as a nicer area with plumbing.  The shower facilities were pretty nice for a campground too.  I’d definitely go back to this campground in the future.