October, All Over

On the 30th, we did the cave hike at South Cumberland and took a few of the kids with us.

Matt and I learned quick to wear knee pads.  Mine came in handy!

There's so much climbing up and down in the cave, I forget how physical it is.
Park writes it up as strenuous, but it's still harder than I think it will be.  haha

Since it was close to Halloween, we stopped to tell ghost stories, the first was at the end of this tunnel!

Katie and Nate were looking for salamanders

I was SO dirty, the kids were not even dusty...

There's a 5 mile RT hike to and from the cave.

We stopped at the overlook for snacks and water.

Matt took the kids back to Katy's, Andrea and I went on to the Natural Bridge

Then we headed for Rock Island, since she wanted to see it and it's only another hour or so away

Matt wanted to know if he needed to meet us, I was sending a message to let him know Andrea was driving me home.  The auto suggestions were pretty darn funny.

It was an active weekend!  26 miles of hiking plus lots of milling around.

I am spending this morning playing catch up on my house work and this afternoon, I am headed to pick up the kids from Amanda's-they migrated.  She's doing a little Halloween party and I am excited about the hay ride part.  hahaha!!

I am looking forward to a couple of days at home to cocoon. I need to recharge!

Summery October

I passed the biometric screening.  BP was 97/70, LDL cholesterol was at 113. Glucose was still high at 97.  I need to look into that and my still falling HDL levels. They want them at 50 or higher and this year they were at 36, though I have never tested higher than 40.  Waist was 33. so my weight wasn't a factor.  I don't smoke, so-other than low HDL, I was fine.

Karen's kitty died Wednesday morning, so we bailed on walking and met up to be sad.  Then we ate lunch and walked anyway.

Thursday was field trip day and that went fine.  Friday we were supposed to meet Andrea to walk but she had to work, so Matt and I walked at Duck River.  It was so pretty!  And SO damn hot.  We drank our liter each AND sucked down the 12 ounce Zevia ginger beers I brought as a surprise and cut the walk short.  We walked 3.04 miles out and turned around for a total (somehow) of...5.8 miles. 

Sea Lab, art class in December and then...only ONE more field trip left for me to plan.
EVER.  Sea Lab should count as 5 field trips, is all I am saying.

Duck River:

rat snake

Saturday, we walked Richard Martin end to end for the full 11 miles and then went to Sugar Creek, thinking it would be dry like it is here and that we could find a few geodes.
It wasn't dry-it was barely low-and we only found a couple geodes, but the water was like ice and we didn't stay in long.

The kids went to the Zombie Ball Saturday night.  Other people were instrumental in making that happen, I wasn't even around all weekend,  SO thankful for friends and big brothers!