We went to Iowa for 10 days & had an action packed week+. Day 1: We went to Annie’s in the morning to play in & with some water. It was HOT!!!

I found my stage! We saw elk everywhere & they were always a welcome sight. We were on a mission to find a moose because we felt pretty lucky with seeing a bear & so many wonderful animals. We never found a real moose, but we did find some statues. Sadly, whoever found a moose…

We headed back to camp after driving through the park & made shells & cheese on our camp stove for dinner & roasted marshmallows for ‘smores over the fire. We had a blast & are anxious to go back!

Here are some pictures of animals we saw. We saw a bunch of elk & deer, coyotes & coyote pups, a turkey & her chicks crossing the street, & a marmot. It was amazing!

We saw this bear several times as we were driving around. We got out & followed it as he moved along the side of the mountain. We were pretty excited to have seen a bear!!

Here are some more pictures of our trail up to Emerald Lake. We had to walk on a bunch of snow the higher up we went & it was slippery! We loved it & found it frustrating. We hiked a total of 5 miles that morning.

These are some pictures of our hike up to Dream Lake, which was 1.8 miles each way & of course we couldn’t stop there when we found out there was a lake named Emerald Lake another mile up!

We stopped to climb some rocks & pose for a picture.

Day 2: We woke up early, fixed ourselves some oatmeal & headed to the trailhead for Dream Lake. The lake behind Wyatt & me is a pit stop on the way up to Dream Lake.

We decided to go into Estes for dinner because it was getting late after our hike. Then we came back to our campsite & Dad made a fire. We roasted marshmallows. Mine is on fire & Wyatt has already eaten his first of at least three. I also put my own headlamp on, if you…