We went for a walk in the afternoon so Mommy could nap when she got home. We hadn't been to Gring's Mill in a while- in fact not since they reopened the entire trail. We went in the direction of the part of the trail that was reopened most recently and ended up walking around 2 miles. My son walked about a quarter of that on his own, all far away from the dangerous creek. He was safe in the stroller the rest of the time. He got to see a very large buck and several squirrels along the way.
When we got back to the "mainland", I took him out of the stroller. He immediately wanted to go back across the bridge. He also stopped to stare at a woman stretching after her run. He stared. And stared...
After eventually making it across the bridge, he, being the little boy that he is, was magnetically attracted to a dried out puddle of leaves and mud. He tripped and fell into it, naturally. This was the dirtiest he had ever seen his own hands, so he stared at them for a while. Then he stuck them in his mouth. We weren't going to tell Mommy that.
Gring's Mill has a nice light display for Christmas each year, and they were putting the finishing touches on it today. It was getting dark as we were getting ready to leave, so we got to see some of the lights in action. He scrambled up a rather steep hill when he saw the lights and stood, watched, and grabbed at them. I took some video for Mommy because he was just so amazed by all the lights. He was even more excited when he realized that he could control single lights by turning them just a little bit. As the sun disappeared and the temperature dropped, I realized we needed to get dinner and home to Mommy.
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I got up early this morning (though not as early as I do when I'm working) so I could get some work done before waking up my son and heading out for today's adventure. I guess I should have let him know that I wanted to get an early start because he ended up sleeping later than he had in weeks! We eventually got on the road and made our way to our destination: Cabela's.
It was the first time for both of us. I had been told recently by more than one person that my son would enjoy the animals and aquarium, and that was reason enough for me. I remember the fuss- good and bad- that was made about Cabela's coming to the area. As it turns out, it worked out pretty well for the area which has become surrounded by stores, auto dealers, and restaurants.
The center of the store is a large mountain landscape that is overrun with animal corpses. Well, it is. My son wasn't too excited by any of them at first, but it looked like he was intrigued by the polar bears around the corner. I let him out of the stroller to see if he would point out any animal in particular. I should have looked around because he immediately ran over to the staircase. Knowing that I wasn't going to be able to keep up with him and hang on to the stroller, I pulled him down. This did not get us off to a good start. Luckily, he was in a pretty good mood for the rest of the day.
He liked the elephant and tried to jump in after the fish in the pond on the other side of Corpse Hill. We made our way through Deer Country where he was excited to see a skunk and some other small four-legged creatures. We found the aquarium and checked out that selection of fish. We even saw a few turtles swimming around in there. It's a little more exciting when they're alive. Eventually we made our way upstairs and had lunch. We even managed to pick out a Christmas gift for Mommy before he made it clear it was naptime.
I was so surprised by the SUV to giant truck ratio in the parking that I dropped his sippy cup while putting away his stroller. It was one of the two that we have that doesn't leak, too. If you happen to be in Hamburg and want to check the Route 61 side of the parking lot for us, we'd love to have it back. I realize he has absolutely no idea, but it bothers me when we lose things of his: a sock here, a sippy cup there. Then I think about how he uses these things for such a small percentage of his life, and I feel a little better. One thing is for sure: we'd be in big trouble if we lost his pal, Scout!
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