Friday afternoon, Kaylee, Steve and I took the Jeep and followed Chuck & Judy down to southern Indiana. Judy has family down there, and they invited us to go along and camp out at a trailer in the woods on her sister's property. They live in the heart of Amish territory, and it is lovely countryside with rolling hills and narrow country roads winding around underneath tall, colorful trees. Kaylee was happy to go somewhere that didn't involve flying...at first. By the time we were getting close to arriving though, she realized she could have been there hours ago if we'd flown, and she decided that flying thing isn't all that bad after all. ;) We arrived after dark, got everything unpacked, visited for awhile and then went on to bed.
The next morning we got up early to go to breakfast in town. It was one of those restaurants
where the locals go each morning to hang out and drink coffee and talk and the food is made by a real person who knows how to cook real bacon to extra-crispy-goodness. The drive out gave us our first chance to see the beautiful countryside, and when we got back I grabbed my camera and kid and made her pose for a lot of pictures for me by the little pond, by the willow tree, the wishing well, the trellis, by the sun shining through the leaves, etc. She was a sport and didn't even give me a hard time about it. We started a fire in the pit by the trailers to take the chill off, and got out the 4-wheelers. Chuck has one he had taken down there that's a bit of a hot rod. It's a 400, and it'll do over 55 mph, which I know because I took a little hand-held GPS and took it flat out down the runway at Glenndale once a few years ago, and before my eyes got blurry with tears, I saw at least 55 on the screen. ;) 
Chuck's brother-in-law has one there as well, a slightly bigger 4-cylinder one that's a slower 300 I think. Steve and I took turns taking Kaylee out on Chuck's, with her in front of us, zipping around through the fields and on the back roads. She loved it. Steve started letting her do the driving with him on the back seat, and she was doing a really good job being careful, listening to directions, nothing crazy or sudden or anything. Same when I took her. So...Steve hopped off once and soloed her for one trip around the campsite, and I took a picture like everyone who soloes should have. ;)We spent Saturday eating, hanging out, talking, playing by the fire, and running the 4-wheelers around. By Saturday afternoon, Kaylee was making Steve and I take turns on the other 4-wheeler while she'd take Chuck's, and we'd drive around following her and stopping and talking and looking at stuff and taking pictures and having fun. Kaylee also got to go up to the house with the ladies and make a craft--a little hat that works as a pin cushion. She chose her fabric, stuffed it with saw dust, sewed it, glued it, put a ribbon around it, and had a lovely finished product. :)
Chuck's brother-in-law (Ray for short!) took his "Treker", which is a 4-wheel-drive little gator-like vehicle, and Chuck sat up front with him, and they led us into the woods to follow a bunch of trails. Kaylee was riding with me on Chuck's, Steve was on Ray's, and Ray & Chuck were in the lead in the Treker. Right off the bat we went down this hill and crossed a little stream area, and a cement block rolled in front of my rear tire. If I turned away from it to the right I wasn't sure I could make the steep-looking drop off area, and I sure didn't want to tip over. So it took me a bit to maneuver around. When I finally got across, I looked up and everybody was gone, so I just gunned it to catch up. Of course the path split in two, and not being able to see or hear anybody down either, I took the right path, and went as fast as I could to try to catch up. The path ended with a tree blocking it, which told me they probably didn't go that way, so I backtracked and went down the other path at a high rate of speed. Steve had turned around and was looking for us, and I ran into him. Not an auspicious beginning, but I at least knew how to get home from there, so it wouldn't have been bad. :) Ray made all those trails, so he sure knew where they were and where to go. We went over the river (creek) and through the woods, through grass taller than we were, and around, over and through trees. The Treker got over a pretty good-sized log in the road with no problem. Steve got over it okay. I got halfway over it and my rear wheels spun out in the mud. So I hit reverse and told Kaylee I was going to hit it again, and she said "I'm getting OFF!" She jumps off, I go over this log at a pretty high rate of speed, and I go flying through the air. I successfully clear the log, and I am just laughing out loud at the launch. Kaylee gets back on and we keep going on our merry way. A few times we had to turn around because it wasn't accessible to us, and once the Treker actually plowed over living little trees that were in our way. They may have been saplings, but they'd sure have
stopped us. Once the Treker got through, I was next in line, and I kind of shrugged and thought that hey, they'd broken the trees, so as long as I remembered where exactly they went, I should be able to get through in the 4-wheeler too. Yep. A little extra power here and there and a lot of bouncing around and we came out of that too. Kaylee ended the trip on the back of Steve's 4-wheeler with him and I had the yellow one to myself. It was a blast. We all had a lot of fun, and there were things we went over, through, up and down that I'd never have known the 4-wheeler could handle if I hadn't seen somebody in front of me successfully go there first. I also had No Clue where we were back there, and had they left us back there and driven off, it would have taken me a whole lot of wandering time to get back to civilization. I have better pictures than that I know, but I'll put them up soon enough. Let me add it's a little tricky driving a 4-wheeler through rough terrain with your left hand over on the right handle where the throttle is and your right hand holding a camera up to your eye so you can snap photos. But it can be done. ;)For dinner we cooked hot dogs over the open fire, then did S'mores for dessert. An easy and tasty meal when one is out camping. :)
We spent Sunday much like Saturday. Breakfast in town, 4-wheeling around with Kaylee on one machine and one of us on the other, taking pictures, hanging out by the camp fire, and eventually packing up and getting ready for the trip home. One time on Saturday Steve and I were both on the blue 4-wheeler, and we started to "race" Kaylee. She gunned hers, looking over her shoulder at us with that intent look on her face, and pulled in front of us. So Sunday I was out riding on the blue one with her on the yellow, and we were clear at the back of a big open field area with tall grass and bumps and such. I started to pass her, and she just opened the throttle and went zipping across there, intent on beating me. For the first time in a very long time, I backed off and fast, because like every other thing you just learn to drive, be it bicycle, motorcycle, car or airplane, just when you think you've got the hang of it is when it's going to bite you. She has no experience controlling something that big going that fast and I didn't want her to take a tumble. She did fine in the short period of time before she realized she was creaming me and slowed back down, but I didn't do that any more. For some reason, even though she had good judgement up to then on going at an appropriate speed, well, I started it, and she seems to be unwilling to be beaten in a race even in fun. Huh. ;)
We packed everything up and headed back north, with me driving. We left at 2 p.m. By 2:10, Steve was asleep. By 2:20 Kaylee was asleep. They pretty much slept until a police car passed us with sirens and lights on due to an accident ahead of us on the road. After we cleared the blockage, Steve was back asleep in a few minutes, and while Kaylee took a little longer this time, she also went back out, and I pretty much had the car to myself. Kaylee slept well last night, but Steve and I didn't. (Nothing uncomfortable with the trailer, I just Could Not Sleep.) Everybody slept until we got close to Noblesville, where we stopped at Brad & Allie's house with Chuck & Judy and carved a pumpkin. Gina was there and did one, and Allie's mom, and their neighbors,
and Maggie & Hannah, and Chuck and Judy, and us, so we had quite a crew. Kaylee picked a Tinkerbell template, and did most of the drawing onto the pumpkin. She also did all the guts-scooping-out and prepping the pumpkin for it, then did a little bit of the cutting. She was afraid she'd goof it up and wouldn't take no for an answer, so I did the rest of the carving part of it. I'm not very good at that, but you can at least tell it's Tink...mostly...from a distance...with a candle in it. ;) Brad put a green light in there and took all the pumpkins outside on a table so we could take photos of them lit. It would have been better to wait about an hour and get it actually dark outside for it, but Chuck & Judy were leaving, Kaylee had school in the morning and it had been a busy weekend, we were still 45 minutes from home with a lot of unpacking to do, and it was already almost bed time; so we took our photos in the mostly daytime, took our pumpkin and headed on home.It was a great little weekend vacation. The area with the trailers was very pretty back there in the woods, and the trailer was hooked up to utilities, so no worries about conserving water or electricity or heat. The company was lovely, of course, and we all enjoyed being outdoors and goofing around on a beautiful fall weekend. You know we enjoy letting Kaylee run around outside, get dirty, and be able to do things you can't really do while living in the middle of a city. And she got to carve a pumpkin with her friend too. A most successful weekend for everyone. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment