Prairie Rose State Park

Prairie Rose State Park is a very pretty 422-acre park in western Iowa near the town of Harlan. The 218-acre lake is the focal point of the park. Facilities include a swimming beach, boat ramps, picnic areas overlooking the lake, and a 97-site campground with electrical hookups. The lake is also good for catching bass, channel catfish, flathead catfish, bluegill and crappies.

After a long day of driving, we stopped at a pretty state park in western Iowa, not too far off Route 80. It was just what we were looking for—a campsite with a nice view of a lake and decent fishing to entertain the kids. A beautiful sunset over the lake was an added bonus.

We usually try to encourage the kids to mingle a bit with the other kids in the campground to get an exposure to what it’s like in other parts of the country, but unfortunately, this doesn’t happen as often as we’d like. Since they have each other, they don’t feel a need to find other kids to entertain them. I guess it would be a very different experience traveling as an only child.

It took a little pushing from Herb, but that night the kids went down to the dock and got some local expertise in the art of catching crawdaddies. Apparently, the goal of catching these little lobster-like creatures was dinner. The kids weren’t quite ready for that much local flavor yet, but they had fun catching them anyway.