We don't do big fancy vacations, but do like to do some fun short and day trips with the kids. It is getting much easier to do this as they get a little older. With babies, and toddlers, honestly, I just feel it is too much work to try to take a vacation! But we did take off on a day trip today and went to Turkey Run State Park. It was great! The rain held off and it was a warm, but mostly cloudy day which was perfect. We had planned on going hiking in the morning, then canoeing in the afternoon, but we ended up not being able to canoe due the the rain the night before and the high, fast-moving water in Sugar Creek. They were not allowing any young kids in canoes today. But we found plenty of other things to keep us busy at Turkey Run. The kids fell in love with this big eagle in the Turkey Run Inn:)
They also had lots of fun skipping stones and searching for shells along Sugar Creek - water is always fun:)
Since we hadn't been there before, we got some advice on where to go and started off at the Nature Center. The kids loved seeing the exhibits of snakes and turtles, checking out all of the feathers, rocks, bones, etc on the "Touch Table", watching the squirrels, chipmunks and birds in the feeding sanctuary, watching the bees in the hives and learning lots about nature. We then headed out to the trails, starting at the suspension bridge, which was lots of fun of course.
There are tons of trails and options present and when we came to a fork in the trail, John suggested we go the way with the more rugged trail. Initially, I wasn't quite as sure about this with a 3 & 6 year old, but it turned out to be the most fun! It was rugged (and muddy), with lots of rocks, crevices, stairs (140 steps at one point alone), creekbeds, ladders and so on, but the kids were great troopers and enjoyed it all.
We had a lot of fun checking out the cavernous areas carved out of the rocks, the cracks and crevices, waterfall areas, creeks (with tiny fish in some areas), bugs and creatures, etc.
By the end of our hike, Blaine was starting to getting pretty worn out! He was such a trooper and had been over some pretty rough terrain for a little guy, but had about reached his limit. So we headed back to the car for our picnic lunch, which allowed us to rest and get rejuvenated a bit. They still weren't eager to do more hiking though, so we stuck around the Nature Center area and then took in the star show in the planetarium.
Since the kids had already had a big disappointment in not being able to go canoeing, we decided we would at least let them go on a pony ride. They weren't old enough to ride a horse on the trails, but could go on a pony ride at the horse barn. So we went to the barn, found out the staff person was out on the trails and would not return for half an hour, so had a snack and waited. When she got back, she informed us that she did not have time for any pony rides before her next trail ride - another big disappointment! We had a little girl crying after this:( We ended up finding a small playground area that they could play at, which helped a bit. But Mr. Blaine was getting pretty worn out, tired and whiny by this time, so we headed out towards home. Coming up SR 41, we came up around Williamsport and realized that it was time for the Warren County Fair, so stopped by for a bit. Ava was excited to watch the heifer show that was going on and didn't want to leave, even though Blaine was being rather impatient and whiny. Didn't take us long to see most of the Warren County Fair, so we were on our way again after a short visit. There will be a lot more fair time coming up to see!
Even with the few disappointments, we all had a great time and realized that we need to do more things like this as a family!
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