Bill and Annie: FPC: Fort Sisseton

After we spent the afternoon at Sica Hollow, we drove to Fort Sisseton, where we weren't entirely certain where we'd be sleeping. I'd tried a couple of times during the week to reserve one of the small cabins in the park and had trouble with the website. Finally, I called the 800 number that's available for making phone reservations and after waiting over 30 minutes for a representative to pick up (I looked at the timer on the phone), was told that it was too late to reserve a cabin because that would require getting in touch with park staff to arrange for keys and in October, there was no guarantee park staff would be in the office. So, I made a tent-site reservation, despite the 30 degree forecast, and just kept hoping and praying that a park ranger would be in the office when we got there.

We really were fully prepared to sleep in the tent. We brought one that would require some snuggling to fit everybody, plenty of extra blankets, and an adventurous (read that: kind of crazy) spirit. But as luck would have it, the park manager happened to stop by the park that afternoon and was actually getting ready to lock up when we pulled in. She was gracious enough to take the time to switch our online reservation to one for a camper cabin and get us the keys. Thank goodness! I think we could have handled temps in the 30s, but the wind was wicked that night. It made it difficult for Bill and I to enjoy our campfire and it definitely would have made preparing and eating our meals a bit more challenging. As it turned out, there are four cabins at Fort Sisseton. Three are for sleeping and one is set up as a kitchen for anyone renting the sleeping cabins. We were the only ones in the park, so we had the kitchen all to ourselves. Talk about being the opposite of what the camping part of this trip could have been! We had a full-fledged kitchen to prepare and eat our meals and we slept in a cabin with heat and beds!

Star-gazing. It was a crystal clear night and the stars were spectacular!

We heated water for hot chocolate and marshmallows instead of making s'mores over this campfire.

Our plush accommodations.

Leah liked this little desk area.

We all liked sleeping in beds with a heater nearby. Oh! And I didn't get a picture of it, but the bathroom situation at this park was about as ideal as it could be too. I mean, absolutely perfect would have been having a toilet and sink right in the cabin, but since we were the only people at the park, a giant and super clean bathroom/shower house with flush toilets and electricity was almost as good.

While Bill caught a few extra zzzz's in the morning, the kids and I went over to the kitchen cabin for some breakfast and then walked up to the fort to look around a little. Once everybody was up, the park ranger gave us a tour of the fort. I've always enjoyed museums and anything related to history, so I knew I was going to enjoy this place. I was pleasantly surprised by how much the kids loved it too. Leah has even requested that we come back here to camp for her birthday next year instead of having a party. I think we'll hold her to it!

After our initial walk to peek around, we were headed back to get Bill for our official tour. The kids noticed all the earthworms on the pavement and just had to rescue them. They'd yell things like, "I'll save you!" and then toss them into the grass. What should have been a two minute walk, took 20. The road was practically paved with worms trying to get back to the safety of the grass. They were also quite funny making up new journal entries for the worm in the book, "Diary of a Worm."