Travelogue

A long 10-hour day of driving brought us to another one of our favorite trans-continental stops--Lake Anita State Park in southwestern Iowa, a very pretty park with campsites right on a lake.

Tom's photo of swansIt was already almost 6:00 when we pulled in, so the sensible thing would have been to make dinner and relax. However, that being said, we decided to go for a run around the lake instead. The boys were so slow getting ready that Herb and I set out ahead of them, fully thinking that they and their young legs would catch up to us in no time. About 3 miles into the run, we couldn't understand why they hadn't caught up to us yet. Finally, we saw them coming towards us. They hadn't listened to our directions on finding the trail and took a wrong turn that brought them in the opposite direction around the lake. Oh well, I don't think they really wanted us to run with them anyway.

Back at the RV--it was now close to 7:00. We probably should have just showered and made dinner, but we were hot from our run and wanted to take a swim. Unfortunately, the only place you were allowed to swim was at the designated beach on the opposite side of the lake. So, we hopped on our bikes (this was getting to be a biathlon) and rode the couple of miles back around the lake to the beach. There must have been a drought since the last time we were here in 2003, because the lake levels were really down and the beach was pretty grassy. We never did wind up going in for a swim, but we did watch a very nice sunset over the lake. Tommy stalked some swans near the lake with his camera, who let him get surprisingly close to them.

That night we had dinner about 9:30--a little too late, but that's okay. This was really the first stop of our trip and having fun together was much more important than being sensible.

Description

Lake Anita lakeside campsiteLake Anita State Park is located in southwest Iowa about 5 miles south of Interstate 80. The park, which contains a beautiful 171-acre artificial lake, is very popular for swimming, fishing and boating.
There is a campground with 144 sites, all within easy access of the lake.