Day 3

Day three started out later than day 2. With nothing really pushing us out of bed, the room slept in. I got up “early” around 7:00 or so and circumnavigated the property on a “run” of sorts. Not sure you can really call it a run. Jogging occured, but a lot of walking also occurred. It was very brisk to start the day, at only 36 degF, and a bit of fog made it a little spooky, but it was good to get out and about and get the blood pumping earlyish. As part of my run I found the Heritage farm, a turn of the century farm that has been preserved and now they hold horse riding breakfasts there. There are also some llamas there. The nicest part was the view from Piano Prairie, though. Framed just right, you could almost imagine what it might look like if there were no roads or dwellings of any kind.

After my run, we all showered and went up to the cafeteria for a quick breakfast of reconstituted eggs and breakfast meat. Things went fine for the most part. People were fed. After breakfast, Mireille had to go the bathroom, so I took her into the men’s room so she could take care of her business. Overall things were fine as they typically are when taking a four year old girl into the men’s room. It did get a little awkward, however, when she started talking loudly about how her “gina itches” while wiping herself. Guess we need to bathe our children more often!

After breakfast we drove to the trailhead of the waterfall trail. It was a pretty achievable, probably 1.5 mile trail to a nice waterfall which took us around an hour to achieve round-trip. Mostly the kids enjoyed the hike, but at one point they all turned against us and started talking about how mom and dad always make them work too much, blah, blah, blah. Even Mireille got into the game, though I can’t recall exactly what she said.

Mireille Dancing and Quinton Rapping

Jenny and I hadn’t quite had enough hiking by the time we were done with the waterfall, so we opted to extend our hike near the canoeing and fishing pond, much to the kid’s chagrin. They were good sports, but all told, we probably only went another 1.5 miles before we piled it back into the car to go back to the room for a quick lunch and some rest.

The afternoon, just like the previous day, had a stray storm with some fast wind and driving mist - not really rain. It was just enough to ruin our reservations for both canoeing and for rock climbing, though apparently they had moved the rock climbing indoors without our knowledge. No matter, we played more foosball instead!

We all converged again on the cafeteria for an Italian dinner before heading back onto the mini-golf range for one more round of golf. Mireille was the star of the show on this day. One of the boys responded to something with “I friggan know,” and Mireille whipped it out not more than 5 minutes later in perfect context to another question. A few holes after that, she talked about Quinton having a booger, and then said loudly, “I think I should poop.” We left it go for a minute, before she said, more urgently, “I have to poop.” Apparently she really did.

All in all it was a nice and relaxing day. After mini-golf, we all went back to the room so Mireille could get her jammies on. At around 8:30, Ethan, Quinton, and I slipped out of the room to take in a star gazing hike around the property. It was clear enough that we could see some stars, though the full moon sort of ruined the really awesome spectacle it could have been. Quinton saw the Big Dipper for the first time, and Ethan was just able to see more stars than he’s been afforded in the city for these last several years. Along the way we also played a game that Ethan made up where you had to describe somebody with super powers but the super powers were pretty useless. For example, somebody who can control the weather but only mild versions of weather, like they could make it mist and drizzle, or make it cool out. Ethan had a lot of good ones along the way. Quinton is still working on it!

We had a bit later of a night this evening, but still everybody was in bed and sleeping by 10:00. Tomorrow, our trip would end…

To be concluded…