Outdoor Adventure

Shane's enjoyed his bike now that he can ride it.

I've missed going on walks, however. Why not combine the two?

Twas a match made in heaven. The trees even protected me from the summer sun.

Not that it was easy (for Shane).

Shane all but stopped going on walks with me once Carrie showed him Pokemon Go. I refused to install it on my phone and Shane refused to walk without it.

The bike made walking new again. I'll need to get a set of wheels for myself eventually.

We stopped to cross the creek. Shane would have hopped from rock to rock and stuck his hands in the water all day.

When I hopped across, I noticed some new paths. My wanderlust won out over Shane's authority and we followed a trail.

We popped out further down the road. I'd hoped the new trail would have led up to a playground in the Willoughby neighborhood, but at least I knew where we were. We took a shortcut down the sidewalk to return to Shane's bike.

Shane got some balance practice in.

We were back at the crossing when we came across a new friend.

J and his dog, Domino, wanted to see what we were up to (J's name was actually Croatian and I'm really not sure how to spell it.....which made it harder to remember a week later when I wrote this).

J said he moved in to the neighborhood on the hill behind our house a couple of months ago. He seemed eager to talk and meet some new people, so Shane and I hung around. Domino loved the water. J started up a game of fetch and Shane joined eagerly.

Shortly thereafter, another group of kids hopped into the creek further downstream.

They looked closer to J's age, so we went to have a look (Shane was already running). Tiffany, her two kids, and their neighbor Cortes were playing in the water. I let Shane jump in.

Someone else had been building with rocks. Tiffany pointed it out.

Shane and I normally didn't see many people on our walks, but there were clearly signs of life (not including the deer that ran across our path).

J followed us home to see our chickens before he and Domino disappeared into the bamboo forest.

Raheem wanted to know where we'd been all morning. My knee ached a little from all the hiking, so I told the boys I wasn't going outside.

They got to play inside instead. Carrie had bought some pills that turned into sponge animals from Target (Nice buy, Love!)

Another active day overall.