Off The Beaten Path

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Ace and I like to get out of the house on the weekend. Momma doesn’t mind because she gets to sleep in. :)

Today we decided to go on a little nature walk.  We went to Three Creeks Park.  If you are friends with me on FaceBook (add me if not) you have probably seen the pictures from our previous visits, but this time we came in from a different entrance that we found last weekend on accident.

When we first walked in we were greeted by this gorgeous pond surrounded by trees.  The leaves are starting to change color, which made it even more inviting…

Three Creeks Park is spider webbed with walking trails…mostly paved, and some hidden gems…the dirt trails.  Ace and I prefer to rough it and take the paths less traveled…

Getting off of the beaten path enables us to see things that most people who are zooming by on their bicycles, or running with their IPods, completely miss out on.  Like the “Volcano Tree” as Ace called it…

And a giant patch of red berries which caught Ace’s eye…

After walking probably a mile back the curvy trail we found the highlight of Ace’s day…a small trail that led down to a bed of river rocks in the middle of the creek.

We spent probably 20 minutes there while Ace worked on his pitching arm by throwing the rocks into the creek.  Yes, he is a lefty… :)

And after his arm was tired from throwing and mine was tired from holding the camera we made our way back on down the trail.

It started off kinda chilly in the morning, but after all of this walking and throwing we had worked up a sweat.  Time to strip off some layers…

One of the most exciting parts of exploring these trails is not knowing where they lead.  I know that some of these trails make their way across the better parts of the East side of town, but luckily this one dumped us out about 300 feet from the truck.

We were both glad, because Momma had just texted us to let us know that lunch was about ready, and we had both worked up quite an appetite…  :D


2010 Vacation – Outer Banks, NC

Again this year we went to the Outer Banks for vacation.  We had a great time!  There were eight adults that went so we were able to split the cost and rent a really nice beach house!

Our Vacation Rental House At The Outer Banks

To get to the house you had to drive eight miles on the beach!  There were no roads to get to the house.  If you ever go to this part of the Outer Banks make sure you do your research and only attempt to drive on the beach at low tide.  :D   We got stuck twice on the way to the house and had to be pulled out both times.  :D

But, once we made it to the house we were able to relax in the pool and hot tub…

Ace In The Pool In North Carolina

Ace In The Pool In North Carolina

And our house was also in the Wild Horse Reserves, so there were wild horses everywhere!  They came right up to our house and even slept in our back yard…

Outer Banks Wild Horses

Outer Banks Wild Horses

Outer Banks Wild Horses Sleeping

Outer Banks Wild Horses Sleeping In The Back Yard

And when we were not playing on the beach…

Jared At The Beach

Jared At The Beach

Ace At The Beach

Ace At The Beach

Ace's Cousin Livi At The Beach

Ace's Cousin Livi At The Beach

Ace and Livi At The Beach

Ace and Livi At The Beach

…we went out to look at the famous light houses…

Currituck Light House

Currituck Light House

Cape Hatteras Light House

Cape Hatteras Light House

… saw the Inn at Roadanthe (From the movie Nights in Roadanthe)…

Inn At Roadanthe

Inn At Roadanthe

… saw all kinds of cool critters…

The Lizard

The Lizard

A Dragon Fly

A Dragon Fly

Pink and Yellow Moth

Pink and Yellow Moth

The Cool Bear

The Cool Bear

Whoever said vacation was relaxing?  :D   At the end of every day we were all pooped…

Ace Worn Out

Ace Worn Out

Ace, Calling It A Day

Ace, Calling It A Day

… and now we are back home…planning next year’s vacation.  :D


If Prison Wasn’t Such A Bad Place…

Ace and I were at the playground behind the neighborhood school the other morning.  The sun was shining (for once), and I was bound determined to soak up every ounce I could get.  It was going to be a good day!  I was taking loads pictures with the new camera and Ace was enjoying the curvy slide, the swing, and the bouncy bridge at the playground!

Everything was great!  We were both having a good time until…….I came across the first person that I wanted to literally strangle the life out of!

I have seen many people in my life.  Probably in the multiple tens of thousands I would guess.  Most of them are nice people.  Some are jack-asses, but not a single one ever fired me up like this one.

So,  I was helping Ace climb up the ladder to the bridge that leads to the slide when I heard, from around the corner of the school, a lady…sorry, wrong word, she was far from a lady…a bellowing woman yell at the top of her lungs… “SHUT THE F*CK UP!”

It caught me off guard.  I mean after all, we were at a school…ya know…where kids are present?   …and then she yelled it again…and again…and again!

Finally the bellowing woman rounded the corner of the school building with two other adults, three kids (maybe 8, 10, and 12 yrs old), and a dog on a leash.

They finally made it over to the playground…and of course had to play on the same piece of playground equipment that Ace was on.

I could hear one of the boys (the 10yr old) whining to his Mom (biologically..not emotionally) that he wanted to walk the dog.

She yells again, “YOU HAD YOUR F*CKING CHANCE TO WALK HIM AT HOME!  YOUR BROTHER IS WALKING HIM NOW SO SHUT THE F*CK UP AND QUIT YOUR DAMN CRYING!”

The boy cries more and asks again.  “Please Mom…I just want to walk the dog….please please please…”

The woman stands up and starts to unbuckle her belt.  The boy runs and screams…”GIVE ME ONE MORE CHANCE!  ONE MORE CHANCE MOMMY!  JUST ONE MORE CHANCE!”

At this time Ace has just made his way up onto the bridge and is walking across it.  I’m standing on the ground below him.

The lady whips out her belt and chases her son around the playground.  The other two adults with the group were laughing hysterically.

The boy runs up the ladder onto the same piece of playground equipment that Ace was on…and the Mom follows with belt cocked.

The boy stops about two feet before he gets to where Ace is and…WHACK!  She whipped the boy with her belt diagonally across his upper back.  And if a belt across the upper back wasn’t bad enough…it was a STUDDED BELT.  You know, the ones with the big stainless steel spikey looking things…!

After she cracked the boy…it was silent.  The laughing stopped.  The boys screaming stopped.  The only sound I could hear was the panting of the crazy woman.

I didn’t say a word.  I was speechless.  And then she looked at me and said, “Go ahead and call f*cking Child Services.  They can raise them.  I gave birth to them.  I can do whatever the f*ck I want to them.”

Aaaaand now I am pissed.  If a look could kill I’m pretty sure she would have died ten times over.

If it wasn’t for the whole going to prison thing I could have easily strangled her right there with her belt…

And then to top it off the other adults start laughing and yelling at the boy to stop crying.  His crying was scaring the little boy (Ace).

“No..you bunch of hill jack, loud mouth, studded belt swinging, piece of shit parents who think it’s funny to chase a little 10 year old around the playground putting all of these other younger kids at risk for getting hurt are scaring him!”

Man, that would have felt good coming out of my mouth…but I held it in.  It definitely went through my mind though!

No matter how bad I wanted to, I knew I couldn’t say anything.  These were the kind of people who honestly don’t care.  If they would go through all of that trouble to punish a boy for asking to walk the dog, what do you think they would do if I threatened to call the police?  And I was there by myself with Ace.  Nope.  I was not putting him in any kind of danger.

So I sucked it up…and kept my mouth shut.  I got Ace down from the playground and we walked over to the next playground area.

No stupid hill jack, loud mouth, studded belt swinging POS Mom was going to ruin our day!


Freeing Up Some Space…

So many times I take pictures and forget I even took them.  I downloaded all of the pictures off of my digital camera and realized that I completely forgot to write about the awesome time we had on a mini vacation in September!

The whole goal of this mini vacation was to get out of Dodge for the weekend, and go down to see the leaves changing along the Ohio river.  There were a few other festivals that we were planing on attending as well.

So, we loaded up the truck, and we moved to Beverly….not really…but we did go to the hills.  Not the Hollywood Hills, but the hills of Kentucky!

We drove down on a Friday night after work and got into the hotel kinda late.  Ace was zonkerred out and Momma and I quickly followed his lead.

Saturday morning we got up early to go to a harvest festival/car show a few towns over.  We get to the little po-dunk town and there was nothing…not one car being showed.  We drove around the 5 whole blocks of this town to realize that their website was wrong.  We finally found a sign advertising the car show… THE NEXT WEEKEND.

So much for the car show.  We had all day and a full tank of gas.  We just started driving and saw a sign for a National Park.  We had not visited a National Park since we lived in Colorado.  Ohio just does not have many extreme wilderness areas…ya know?

We paid for our day pass and drove about 10 miles back into this forest until we found ourselves parked at the end of a hiking trail alongside the Ohio River.  Ace has never been hiking…let’s do it!

Off we go…hiking through the forest.  It was pretty muddy because it rained the night before, and Ace hit every mud puddle along the trail.  I rolled up the bottoms of Ace’s pants to keep them from getting too muddy…and I had to roll up mine as well.  :D   We were having fun!

The cliffs were amazingly high…and steep!

Tall Cliffs Near The Ohio River

Tall Cliffs Near The Ohio River

Ace got to see a lot of things he had never seen before…big cliffs, the Ohio River, people riding horses, and even a few barges hauling stuff down the river (one was hauling port-a-potties…a whole barge full of porta-potties!)  :D

We hiked and hiked…and hiked!  I’m surprised  that Ace’s little stubby legs still worked!  But he did stop a few times to take a rest…

Taking A Rest While Hiking

Taking A Rest While Hiking

We hiked all the way back to the truck where ace decided that there was something wrong with the front tire..

Dad, Here Is The Problem...

Dad, Here Is The Problem...

And after he fixed the problem…not real sure what he did…we headed back out on the road.

We came across a little park that marked a battle site from the Civil War…or something.  ( I never have been a history buff.)  There was a cannon that was used in the battle, and for some reason an old cabin.

Looking Down The Barrell Of A Cannon

Looking Down The Barrell Of A Cannon

Notice the jacket that Momma is wearing?  It’s the one I reviewed…  :D
Which by the way has been moved over to the new DadThing Reviews Blog!

Sitting On The Front Porch Of An 1800's Cabin

Sitting On The Front Porch Of An 1800's Cabin

We quickly bored ourselves with a history lesson and headed back out onto the road.  This time we ended up at the Louisville zoo!

Just so happens they were having a trick or treat night!!  So, we got Ace dressed up in his best Fire Fighter Uniform and went to keep all of the zoo animals safe from any blazing infernos.  :D

Firefighter Halloween Costume

Firefighter Halloween Costume

And wouldn’t you know it…Dorothy, The Tin Man, The Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow from Oz were there!

We just had to meet them…and get our pictures taken with them…

The Tin Man and Dorothy

The Tin Man and Dorothy

The Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion

The Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion

Dad and aat the Emerald Palace!

Dad and Ace at the Emerald Palace!

Notice the bottoms of my pants?

Yup, some ‘tard forgot to roll them back down after hiking… :D

I guess Momma is right…I am special sometimes.  :D


How Do You Know You Spend Too Much Time Playing Bejeweled Blitz On Facebook?

Bejweled Blitz

Bejweled Blitz

So how do you know when you spend too much time playing Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook?

Maybe you check the leader board while on break at work to make sure that no one has beaten your score!

Could it be that you find yourself organizing the cans in your cabinets into groups of three?

Do you dream up ways to sabotage that person’s computer who will always get 200,000 points every single week and you’re lucky to get 100, 000?!

Or maybe…just maybe…a good sign would be your two year old, who only speaks the language of Nick Jr, running around the house saying, “One Minute…Go!”…”Bang Bang Crash”…”A New High Score!”

Maybe…just maybe…that would mean that you play just a little too much.  :D