The boys had parent-teacher conferences this week (both are doing just wonderfully, by the way), and so were out of school on Friday. You know what a day off school means. . . A Just Me & My Boys Day! The weather was so nice, I knew we had to do some outdoor activity. One of my favorite JM&MB things to do is hiking, so we took off for Hillsdale Lake to see how what kind of hiking we could find!
Look at all of those trails to explore! Somewhere it said there were 43 miles of trails, so there was plenty of hiking to be conquered.
Goofy boys!
The boys wanted to see how many different animals they could find. We found a camouflaged frog and a scared turtle.
No hike is complete without finding the water. I wasn't sure we were going to find our way, but eventually we did -- Success!
We may not have found many live animals, but we found a scorpion skeleton. . .
. . . and LOTS of animal tracks. Made by live animals, so close enough to actually seeing them, we figured. According to the boys, we saw deer tracks and dog tracks (believable enough). . .
. . . bear tracks (umm, probably not). . .
. . . peacock tracks (not sure why they thought this was a peacock). . .
. . . and the most believable of all: Sasquatch tracks. I think the boys have been watching a little too much "Finding Bigfoot" on Animal Planet.
And I, too, discovered some tracks of a rare breed of Oliver. Isn't it the cutest little footprint?
Leaving the water, we began our hike back up. And got lost. Although I knew we would find our way eventually, I honestly had no idea which trail we were on. The boys kept whining, saying, "Why are we hiking the 43? We didn't want to hike the 43!" (Because they had seen the 43 mile trail on the map.) I told them this is what adventure is all about, and it's FUN! And besides, you're never really lost when you're with your Mom! Not sure how convincing I was, but the weather was perfect and the forest was pretty and I was having a good time anyway. And eventually we did find our way out, of course. The hike was perhaps a couple miles longer than initially planned, but no harm with that! And besides, I'd brought snacks and drinks for the hikers so I think they had fun anyway.
We left Hillsdale Lake and drove on to Osawatomie, home of John Brown Memorial Park.
They claim the Civil War started here, but the Battle of Blackjack (just a couple miles from home) also claims to be the first battle of the Civil War. . . Hmmm.
We toured the Adair cabin on the grounds. This was the cabin of John Brown's half-sister and where he set up his "headquarters" in Kansas.
There was all kinds of interesting history about "Bleeding Kansas" and John Brown's raids against those who were pro-slavery.
After checking out all there was to see in the cabin, we explored the grounds where the Battle of Osawatomie took place.
And Calvin wanted a picture next to the life-size John Brown statue. The way he is depicted in pictures, I would have guessed him to be much taller!
By this time, we had worked up quite an appetite, so we traveled back to Paola to eat at the BBQ Shack.
We chose this particular restaurant because it had been featured on the boy's favorite show on Food Network: Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. They thought it was so cool to eat at a place that they had seen on TV! (And I thought it was funny that Guy Fieri couldn't spell "Shack.")
Oliver got the ribs, and gave them 2 big thumbs up!
For dessert, they chowed down on some of the football brownies that Oliver chose as his special treat for JM&MB day. (Calvin had chosen the white powder donuts that didn't last long.)
After lunch, we went on a peaceful drive to Block, Kansas. What is in Block, anyway?
Really, just one thing: This church. Where on a steamy day in August 2000, I got to become Mrs. Russ Dwyer! I haven't been back to this country church in many years, so I thought it would be fun to show the boys where their mom and dad got married.
The last Miami County attraction I was going to visit was the Cider Mill in Louisburg. But I think our longer-than-anticipated hike and the delicious, filling lunch had taken their toll on us and we were all ready for a nap! So we just drove on home. We had a great JM&MB day to start the new school year!
