The “picnic” we went on Saturday kinda sucked. It was just me, Traci and Michael, and my sister and her daughter. It’s about a 45-minute drive up to the place we went, and when we got there, it was so windy that we didn’t want the kids outside, so Traci and Mandy sat in the car with them while I rode my bike up the dirt road. I was hoping the road would wind up the canyon, but it ended about 50 yards around the bend from where we parked the Subaru. There were a few game trails past where the road ended, so I kept riding, but I got slapped in the face a few times by tree branches. I probably went a couple hundred yards further, then the terrain started getting too rough for a mountain bike, so I just turned around and went back. After I had something to eat and drink, I hiked up to the cave in the hill next to where we were parked, but there was a ledge at the mouth of the cave that I couldn’t make it up without someone else’s help, so I just had to hike back down the hill. It really wasn’t worth the drive, but it was something to do.
Traci and I went to the park and flew our kites when we got back into town, and that was really fun. We went to the park near the cemetery, which is pretty new, and there are no mature trees or any other obstructions to get in the way. Michael seemed to have fun, and it was nice for us because the expanse of grass was so big, we didn’t really have to worry about him wandering off–he was always in plain sight–but he stayed right by us anyway. My kite (a 4 ft. nylon kite that I’ve had for ages) doesn’t do well in high winds. It kept nosediving when the wind picked up, and one time it did it when I had almost all of my string played out. I remembered that I had my cordless drill in the car, so I stuck the dowell in the drill and wound my string that way. I think I’m going to get a new 6.5 ft. or larger (maybe even a 20 footer) kite pretty soon–I’ve found them online for around $25–and I think I’m going to make a wooden winder similar to the ones most places sell. The one thing I hate about flying kites is winding string.