Persistence Pays Off

We decided recently that we wanted have a family play day where we went somewhere different and did something out of the ordinary. Not too extravagant or outlandish, not too far, just a little different. And we also wanted to incorporate a little bicycling in with whatever we did. So we picked a day and began putting together an itinerary of outdoor activities. However, because of the bicycling and outdoors aspect, it meant the weather needed to cooperate, which it didn't. The designated day arrived and the temperature was in the low 30s with snow flurries off and on during the day. Not very conducive to being outdoors or biking.  Not for me, anyway. And in addition to that, something had come up unexpectedly a few days before that we suddenly found ourselves with a fair amount of work to get ready for. So we decided to postpone the activities a couple of weeks to the next open Saturday.

The next open Saturday arrived and we were full of anticipation! Got up at a decent hour, did a few things around the house, loaded the bikes into the car, along with some other gear we wanted to take with us, hopped in the car and pulled out of the driveway only to discover we had a flat tire. Really!? A flat tire!? Yes, flat as could be. Well, okay. We can change the tire, put on the spare, and drop off the flat at the shop to get fixed while we went and played. And then we made an incredible discovery, an unbelievable discovery. We'd been driving this car for six years without a spare tire! It hadn't come equipped with a spare, not even one of those stupid little pseudo-spares, those undersized spares automakers began putting in cars several years ago.  That's several trips half way across the country and back without a spare. Like, 3000 miles each! All over the Midwest, or out to the inter-mountain west and back without a spare. On top of that the thought that we haven't had a flat on that car in six years - that in and of itself is an amazing thing! 

Anyway, for our play day it meant the spare had to get fixed pretty quick if we were still going to make the trip we'd planned. So we got the flat off and loaded in the other car and beat it down to the local shop that fixes flats for free. Unfortunately, they were going to close in 20 minutes, but if I’d care to leave it they could have it done three days later. Uh, no, thanks. So I then called our regular mechanic but he's only open every other Saturday and unfortunately this day was not his day to be open. The third place said they'd be able to do it, probably the same day but no guarantees - if I'd leave it they'd work it in between appointments. So I left it but by the time we got it back it was pretty much too late for the day we had planned. So we pushed it back again, two weeks to the next available Saturday.

We'd been watching the weather predictions as the day of next try approached. Early on it was looking real good; temperatures predicted to be in the 70s, sunny skies, calm winds - everything was looking really promising. But as the Saturday got closer and closer the weather predictions deteriorated more and more. But even in the evening before it was still looking good enough, not ideal but good enough; temperature in the mid 50s, overcast and maybe a little wind. Well, okay, a 20 mile an hour wind. Maybe we'd drop the bike ride and just walk - that would still be okay, right? Well, Saturday arrived and our granddaughter had a t-ball game in the late morning we'd wanted to go to but at the game it was just barely in the 50s and it was pretty windy. That combination made the hour and a half we spent at the game pretty cold; we decided it was just too cold and windy to spend the day outdoors like we'd planned. That plus the “overcast” had showed up as some pretty threatening clouds. The radar showed all kinds of rain just to the southwest, which is where our weather usually comes from. Outdoors all afternoon in the cold, wind, and rain? No, thank you. We decided to move it back again. This time, the next open Saturday was three weeks away. Surely that would be far enough into the summer that winter will have finally let go and left. After all, we'd gone from mid March to the third week in May.

A week before the next try we got word that our grand-kids were having a recital on our play day. So far we've gone to all their recitals and we wanted to go to this one too, but the recital was an hour and a half in the opposite direction from the city we'd been planning on going to. Well, okay, we can work with that. We put the plans we'd had back on the ”to do” list and made plans for the new location. Fortunately there were some things in this new location that I've been wanting to do so the change in venue was not a big problem. In addition, while all this planning and postponing had been going on, Maulbeere and her husband had decided to move into the area from out west. The day of our play day was also going to be their first Saturday in their new apartment, which, as luck would have it, was in the same county as the recital.  So what had begun as a play day was turning into a family day – how cool is that!?  

So the big day arrived and the weather was beautiful!  Sunny, hardly any clouds, very little breeze and temperature in the mid to high 70s.  Nice.  The place we had decided to go was a park so we loaded up the bikes in the car, along with some stuff for a picnic we were all planning for later in the evening.  We got off from home pretty much on time and made the drive.  First stop was brunch with Maulbeere and her husband.  He had to work so he wasn’t going to be able to make the picnic but we had a good time at brunch.  You can tell when the dishes are cleared away and you find yourself lingering to talk and laugh and just enjoy the company.  It was good food and a good visit.

Next stop was the park.  This part was just me and Bormbeere.  First stop in the park was a look out tower.  This one wasn’t so bad – only 64 steps to the top.  But it was still a really nice view.   

I had hoped to be able to have the top of the tower all to ourselves for long enough to get a few pictures but this was a very nice day and a lot of people were at the park.  There were several other families or groups up on the tower.  But they were all nice and let us have to one side of the platform long enough to get a nice picture. 

After the tower we wanted to visit a statue of a local Indian chief that had lived in this area during the 19th century.  So we walked over to the statue and got our pictures.  

Then we decided there was still enough time to get the bikes out and ride around a little.  This was easy riding, nothing hard or strenuous, just sight-seeing around on the trails.  In fact, in this park there were not a lot of trails where bikes were allowed but there were enough.  

One bad thing about the maps on the internet, though; you can’t tell anything about the hills or lack of hills when you’re looking at an area.  So even though the stuff I had checked on the park described the trails as “mostly flat”, there were still several hills.  That, plus the trails were pretty rocky and rough – not real conducive to easy bike riding.  We even hit one spot where there were stairs on the trail so we had to back-track and find another way around. We rode out on the trails but after about a mile we switched to the road that ran more or less along parallel to the trails.  Much nicer, easier on the rear-end.  In fact, though we saw plenty of others on bikes we didn’t run into any bikers on the trails.  

We rode from the statue to another look-out area, checked the view and then headed back to where we’d left the car near the tower.  

By this time it was getting pretty warm and time was running out so we made a stop at a local ice cream shop that turned out to be pretty good.  Then we beat it over to pick up Maulbeere and head for the recital.

The recital was good, even little Peanut played.  She played a tune called “Mississippi Hot Dog”.  She got a bit of stage fright at first but with her Mama right in front of her she made it through her piece. 

Then her brothers did their pieces.  Her older brother is actually getting pretty good, his notes were clean and good – a lot of kids’ notes were often a little flat or sharp.  They all three did very good.

After the recital we headed to a park for the picnic and to play on the playground equipment.  And to kick around in the sand – the kids had to stop a number of times to pour the sand out of their shoes.

 

As the sun was setting Blaubeere saw a large bird come in and land in the reeds around the pond at the park.  So we all went over to a little dock to see if we could see it.  

We found lots of red-winged blackbirds, a duck or two and the big one – a blue heron. It was clear across the pond from the dock but my camera has a pretty good zoom and we were able to get a pretty good view.  It was cool. It was especially fun to get a number of fairly good pictures of it. It didn’t seem to be getting along with the blackbirds too well.  Ah, well.

Anyway, a minute seeing who could jump the highest (I think Brombeere won that one!), a group shot on the dock as the sun was setting and that was pretty much the evening.  Time for everyone to head for home.

It was a good day – lots of good family time.  Despite the set-backs and delays in making this day happen, despite the change and change again in plans of how to spend the day, it turned out really nice.  It was a good time.