Our Gray Life: $13 Dollar Day

I have been trying to muster up the courage to go hiking with the boys for weeks. After traveling all week, Cody enjoys spending the weekends in the house watching sports. I am just the opposite. After being in the house with the boys all week, I prefer to get out on the weekends.

However, when the weather beckons and I want to explore with the boys, fear has kept me at bay. What if I get lost? What if the boys have a meltdown and I have to turn right around? What if someone gets hurt and I have to carry them? What if? What if? What if?

Well this weekend I said no more. Cody left for OKC to deliver 2 of our puppies to their forever home and the weather was calling us to come out and play. I did some research and Saturday we took off on a scenic 1.25 hr. drive to Mueller State Park for an afternoon of hiking and sledding. The boys were surprisingly pleasant on the drive. I have the 'simple car' and there are no TVs to keep everyone entertained on the drive. The boys had to 'old school it' and listen to their bible school CD and look out the window. No tears, no complaints about the drive. Success #1.

Once we arrived, my fears were confirmed. The park was deserted and despite talking to two park rangers, I could not find the sledding hills marked on the maps. I ended up stalking a caravan of cars and following a family (lets call them the Millers) into the woods as they searched for sledding hills. Everyone was searching for 2 hills in the vicinity. One hill was the King Big Daddy of hills. This was the largest and steepest adult hill at the park. Next to the king daddy hill was the preschool hill. Guess which hill we found? You bet. We found Big Daddy. The preschool hill was never discovered. Big Daddy was huge. Each of the Miller males tried to conquer the hill. Despite multiple attempts and various sledding tactics nary a Miller man made it down the hill successfully. Each man was systematically thrown from the sled or voluntarily flung himself off the sled on in order to avoid crashing into a tree going a million miles an hour.

The boys and I tried to make the most of a dangerous situation. The boys started about 3/4 of the way down the hill. And even traveling down just a fraction of the hill, they were flying! I was the catcher at the bottom and almost knocked down several times.

Cole hung in much longer than I anticipated and went down the Big Daddy half a dozen times before calling it quits. Case could have gone up and down Big Daddy all day, but my body was tired of being a human roadblock and finally called it quits.

We never found the preschool hill but before leaving we did find a slow grade hiking trail covered in snow that ended up being a perfect long path for the boys to sled down. The path was so long and smooth that Case hopped off his sled several times because he couldn’t see me anymore. 3 hours of snow covered fun made for a really wonderful afternoon. Case made snow angles and Cole periodically stopped, dropped and ate snow whenever he felt the urge. We ended the adventure at Old Mill donut shop eating ginormous donuts in Woodland Park and enjoying a beautiful sunset on the drive home. Case said he would remember this day forever. 7$ for the park admittance. 6$ on donuts. Memories, priceless. Not bad for a $13 dollar day. I’m glad I decided to ignore the 'what if's' and adventured out with the boys.

This is Bid Daddy. It may not look steep, but IT WAS!