Fort Pillow 1st camping trip only 101 to go

Fort Pillow is very close to where we live and so we thought that it would be a great first trip. We went there for the weekend on October 13th 2013. Here is the link to Fort Pillow, http://tnstateparks.com/parks/about/fort-pillow Fort Pillow is not an RV campground. If you want to primitive camp, this is the place to go. I love it here and the fact that it is only 30 minutes from my house makes me love it even more. When we went to Fort Pillow we thought about what we wanted to do as a family instead of just sitting at the camp site. They have a beautiful museum there with awesome Civil War relics. The great thing about their museum is that the staff. They are so knowledgeable and kind. You can tell that they have great pride in their state park. We also decided that we would go on a hike. On this camping trip it was The hubs, the 3 year old and myself. The other two kiddos were not available. My husband and I were a lot heavier when we decided to go on a hike. We had no idea how long the hike was we just knew that we wanted to go see the Fort. We had no idea that it was a 5 mile hike. Since I had never been hiking with a 3 year old I had NO idea what I was in store for. We brought 2 bottles of water and that was it. I think that my husband was wearing flip flops. It was bad…. very bad. We got to the Fort finally and had no water left. I was parched or rather we all were. When we left I spotted the Holy Grail. There is a water fountain and a place to sit. THANK YOU LITTLE BABY JESUS. I am so glad that someone had the foresight to put a water fountain there for idiots like us. My husband took some beautiful pictures (he is a photographer) and then we made our trek back. We were about a mile from being back to where we started and my 3 year old started crying and stated that he wanted me to hold him. Actually his exact words were "Momma, I want to hold you." I thought about it for a few minutes and decided that I was NOT going to pick him up. I could see the future in my mind. Every camping trip and every hike I would have to carry him. NOPE, wasn't going to start that at all. So, I turned and looked at him and said, "Sorry love, I think you need to carry yourself." Well you would have thought that I said I was never going to pick him up again. He threw himself down on the ground and started pitching the biggest fit. I just walked away. My husband looked at me like I was cruel. I didn't care. I just kept telling my little man as I was walking away that we were going to leave him lying there and maybe the raccoons were going to get him. Needless to say he got up rather quickly and ran to us. We had it back to our camp site and he promptly feel asleep for over an hour. YES!!!! I love hiking and camping. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER carry a child when you are hiking and they are completely capable of walking. TRUST ME!