Boi, oh boy!

Our final vacation day. It was sad to leave, but we are home safely after a nice, long weekend.

We woke up and went on another bike ride along the river. William must have eaten his WHEATIES this morning, because he was a force to be reckoned with. He was so far ahead of me on this trail this morning, he had to keep stopping to wait for me to catch up. At one point he said "Mom, could you please pick up the pace a little". Aren't I supposed to be the one saying that to my kids? He must have gotten Bill's biking gene.

After the bike ride, we headed to the Botanical Gardens so I could try (try, being the operative word) to get some nice photos of the boys. Neither one of them was in the mood to be my mini-models today, but I got a couple of decent shots somehow. We came on the best day of all, FREE day. I don't know how, but the gardens were open and there was no one there to take our entrance money. I was devastated (or not). These aren't just any gardens, however. No siree, these are on the grounds of the old state penitentiary. The grounds still include the old prison yard, complete with guard towers and imposing wall and wire. As you can imagine, this was the thing that impressed the boys the most about our visit to the Botanical Garden.



Next to fit into our short, but full o' fun, last vacation day was a trip in paddle boats down a canal and into a nice little duck pond in the city's main park. The boys had waited for this moment for 2 days solid. I was a little surprised by their enthusiasm for paddling around a duck poop filled park pond. In all fairness to the fine city we visited, it was clean and lovely as far as duck ponds go. The kids divided up the parents, Romney wanted Bill and William wanted to ride with me. (Ok, I may have told him he could steer if in my boat). With William at the helm it was only a few minutes until his fear of crashing into things was allayed, and he enjoyed trying to bumper boat Bill and Romney's barge. (Notice how it has gone from a paddle boat to a barge in a mere paragraph?) We did see a wild mink running along the bank of the canal. It was correctly identified by myself, and confirmed via GOOGLE images via Bill's iphone. Not bad for a city girl. I was impressed I was able to identify a mink that was not currently being worn on the shoulders of a non-card carrying non-PETA member. I am a human who does not agree with killing animals for fashion, but I can see why the world may not miss a few mink. They are ugly rodents. BLECH!

Still don't know where we were? Click here to find out.

Who knew the state I have spent many breaths mocking would be the source of some serious family fun?