We have 11 weeks this summer for fun & games & adventures. 11 weeks from the time of Jake's graduation from Infinite Bounds to the day he walks through the doors of Anderson Elementary. 11 weeks until he's officially a Big Boy. We're trying our best to make the most out of these 11 weeks. One of the things we're doing is going on an "adventure" every week. This week's adventure: berry picking!
We got up and out of the house early to beat the heat. My goal was to leave by 7:00, but hey, it's summer vacation. We were on the road before 7:30 and I was fine with that. It just isn't worth rushing the kids. Nothing good ever comes of it. The kids were happy eating their breakfast in the car, and even happier when we finally got to Bailey's Berry Patch. Of course, a warm welcome from a country dog pretty much guaranteed it was going to be a great day.
We picked blueberries & blackberries for a while. But it didn't take long for the heat to get the best of us.
We didn't come close to filling our buckets - which was a good thing. Really, what would I do with 2 gallons of berries? Especially when you consider that I don't even eat the things!
The car got pretty dusty while we were picking and we were running on empty anyway, so we took a quick trip through the drive through carwash. It was fun and scary and not very effective at getting the car clean. But who cares! It only cost $1 with a fill up.
With a full tank and a kinda clean car, we headed north to cool off in Lake Texoma. Eisenhower State Park has a nice little beach and hot & cold showers, so that's where we set our sites. Too bad I absent-mindedly took the wrong exit. But not to worry, we found this Lil Ol Road, and wouldn't ya know! It took us right where we wanted to go! Seriously, ya gotta just love Texas for this kind of stuff. "Lil Ol Road" - how funny is that?!
On our hike down to the beach, we passed Jake's favorite rock. He calls it the Texas rock. Can you figure out why? Of course, the red circle and arrow are my work, but that little Texas-shaped white patch...that's actually part of the rock. Even the rocks here have to show their Texas pride!
When we got to the lake I was amazed! When we were camping here on Memorial Day weekend, the lake was covered with little clumps of green slime. It was really pretty disgusting. But on this day, it was crystal clear and warm. We swam all the way out to the buoys and back...a couple of times. We stopped at every little "island" on the way (huge rocks that jut out of the water just outside the frame of this picture), where we could get a fisherman's-eye view of some enormous fish. I'll admit I wasn't too excited about getting back into the water after we spotted those fellahs. One was close to 2' long!
We had a very sandy picnic on the beach, built some sand castles and then headed up to the showers. The kids weren't ready to leave - what a surprise - but it was time to go. We'd been out in the sun for about 7 hours and I was pretty sure that no amount of sun block was going to do any good at this point.
We had a couple of stops to make before we could head home. 1st, we had to pop into the Rangers' Station at the park. The kids were begging for a couple new "friends" (stuffed animals). The Rangers' Station has some really cute ones, and all the proceeds go directly to the park. Meet Soshee Lolo the Fawn & Water the Duck - the latest additions to the menagerie.
Our last stop was Braum's, because no adventure is complete without a little...
ice cream!
1 comment:
so wish we could have gone, we will have to meet there one day!!!!
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