Camping at Rocky Arbor

Last weekend, Josh and I went camping at Rocky Arbor State Park. It was our first full weekend endeavor together and the first time either of us had been camping in many years. Rocky Arbor is in the Dells area, about an hour away from Madison, close to other popular state parks like Devil's Lake and Mirror Lake. Surprisingly, setting up the tent on Friday night was pretty easy, and a campfire followed shortly after.

Our mornings consisted of sleeping in, eating cereal with fruit for breakfast (a new activity for me!!!), and going to Starbucks for coffee, yes, that's right...Starbucks. We vow never to do this again on a camping trip...right...

In the afternoons, we explored. We intended to find a little known area called the Dells of the Wisconsin River State Natural Area. Naturally, we got lost, probably due to the map not drawn to scale and Josh's poor sense of direction. We ended up on the other side of the Dells and ran across Mirror Lake, a destination we were planning on reaching later that day...so we stopped there first. We hiked around, checked out the rates for canoe rentals, and tried to scope out some good campsites. After this, we looked at a map and figured out how to find the State Natural Area from Mirror Lake. This time we successfully found it (...and ran across the Chula Vista, which it turns out, is located in the boonies of the Dells), ate lunch, and started our hike. This area turned out to be one of our favorites for the weekend. The trail took about 20 minutes and ended at a small sandy beach on the Wisconsin River. We explored around for quite some time. I discovered some footprints in the wet sand, probably mink? Josh took some time to hike around the rock formations off the trail. This area would be great for picnicking for the day...we hope to do this sometime...

Keeping our loyalty intact, we did end up hiking the one-mile trail at Rocky Arbor. We almost died of a massive mosquito attack, so the hike was a quick one, though the trail was ridiculously beautiful.

Each night ended with a campfire that included cheesy hotdogs over the flame, perfectly brown, gooey (or burned, in my case - thank you, Josh, for eating those...) marshmallows for s'mores, and some inventive salami sandwiches. We topped it all off with Rocky Arbor Champagne = Bud Light in 16 oz cans. Classy? I think so.

Overall, a weekend well done. We got to relax and enjoy each other's company, while at the same time, we still had enough activities planned to keep us busy the whole weekend. We already have another camping trip planned in late August...stay tuned to see if I survive the pit toilets at Wyalusing :)

To view all of our photos from the weekend, go here.