The Bunch Have Been Busy

We celebrated C's 27 Birthday. Wow! Time flies!

After months of basically forcing A to get her permit and start driving, it has finally happened...she is fully licensed and can drive by herself. This was not an easy road to go down with her. She still doesn't want to drive, but hopefully she will appreciate the freedom that comes with being able to transport yourself when you want to where you want. She failed her first driving test and that really upset her. It wasn't really her fault. The driveway that the DPS tester took her out from to the main road was about 50 ft behind where the speed limit sign is. She was unsure what the speed was so she guessed it was 40 mph. It was a good guess. I would have thought 45, however apparently it was 35. Any speeding is an automatic failure. This caused all kinds of over reactions, but I took her back the very next morning and she tried again. This time she did beautifully and passed. She even nailed the parallel parking. So now she is able to drive by herself and our car insurance went up 100%. Today her first solo outing is to go pick up her medicine from the pharmacy herself. This is going to be so great!

The test begins. I am not allowed in the car or inside thanks to Covid. I was really happy the weather was nice. 

I basically just sat on the curb for 15 minutes while they were gone.

She did it! I was concerned when they spent 5 minutes talking after they got back, but A flashed me the thumbs up sign so I knew she did it.

I took her to a cute coffee house to celebrate her victory!

We finally made it the dark sky park that we had wanted to visit. Ironically at 200 miles away, it is the longest trip of this year. Normally, we drive a lot farther. However, it felt really far since we have become use to only traveling for about an hour. Hauling the trailer slows us down tremendously so it took about 4 hours each way. The park was nice and the weather couldn't have been better. We saw so many stars. Several of our neighbors, who were apparently really into star gazing, brought super fancy expensive equipment. We only had an old telescope my parents bought back in the 1980's, which didn't really do much, and some binoculars. Even without anything it was super neat, but even just binoculars really helped you be able to see the super faint stars your naked eye missed. We had such a wonderful time. It is a place that you bring everything you need in with you. The nearest grocery store is quite a ways away. We also went on a super fun hike. I felt great so I really wanted to try the rocky ledge trail. The kids tried to talk me out of it, but to no avail. Anytime a trail says "rocky ledge" or "canyon loop" it usually means you will get some fantastic views. Most of the trail we went on wasn't too bad, but there were a couple of spots that were quite dangerous. It said it was also a mountain bike trail. I hope at the steep drop off they get off and walk their bikes down because otherwise they will just go sailing off the cliff to the nice jagged rock bed below. It was a fun hike and it felt good to NOT always be the person everyone is waiting on.

Once again we had a spacious site and T wanted to sleep in his tent.

The Rocky Ledge trail head.

The trail became rockier and higher the longer we were on it.

It was probably one of the best marked trails we have ever been on.

It did get steep in some places

The rocks were like sandstone covered quartz. It was pretty.

The kids had fun with a rock they said looked like pride rock from the lion king.

Apparently their water bottles are their baby lion cub.

We finally made it to the top. That is the Pease river. I think it should be renamed to Pease Puddle.

We had a fabulous time and even the kids had fun looking at the stars.

D says I only ever post his all smoke fires so here is proof he can make a great fire! 

And here is an even bigger fire he made last time we burned our old hay and brush. This one was a little big for me, but we had no issues so he knows how to handle a big fire.