Saturday, October 9, 2010

Bugs, Trails and good Friends!

   These last couple of days have been busy ones for us. On Thursday we went to the 11th Annual Bug Festival put on by the Uof A. It was quite a lot of fun. We learned a lot about the creatures that are native to this area and saw some exotic bugs from other countries. I found out that the fire ants have made it up this far and I so hope never to see them again!. We met up with most of our homeschool group and actually missed the hoard of school kids that came.  The kids enjoyed themselves and so did I.



   On Friday we went hiking with most of the group at the Ponca Elk Center  http://www.agfc.com/education/Pages/EducationCenterPonca.aspx, It was great, the kids went to different stations, read and looked over the displays, then answered the questions. Piper liked listening to the bird calls and Zoe liked the animal pelts. Since our favorite show at the moment is Bones we were quite interested to see how they cleaned the sculls they had. I was quite disappointed to find out most of them were fake. We are searching for a way to clean bones quickly so to study them for science. All the kids had a good time at the Elk center and we left there with hopes to see some elk later in the evening. The nicest thing that happened there was overhearing two ladies that worked there discussing our group,commenting on how well behaved they were! That was so nice to hear. I know the get a lot of school kids in and that they can be quite rowdy at times.
 After the Elk center we went to Lost Vally to meet up with Maggie our trail guide. The gal was great, everyone was quite impressed that she remembered all our names so quickly. Our group started up a beautiful trail and every little bit someone would spot something to ask Maggie about and everyone would gather around to listen, since there were16 of us we stopped a lot! We stopped at a small grotto called the Natural Bridge to rest and the kids went climbing up to the bridge that was above it.  It was a cave the went through to a part of the trail above us.Most of the kids went that way and met up with the others to continue the hike to Eden Falls. Piper and I decided to stay there with one of the other moms and her 2yr old. We had a good time talking with other hikers(the trail was quite busy) and exploring around. After we met up with some of the others we hiked back to the campsite one mom had reserved as some of the group were camping overnight. I was so ready to sit for awhile! I really need to do this more often to get in shape. The rest of the group finally made it back, Zoe thought the cave was a little scary as you had to go through a small narrow space to get in. We then had a potluck dinner, the kids roasting hotdogs and huge marshmallows over the campfire.Even though we didn't see any elk all in all it was a great day, with beautiful weather, awesome scenery, and good friends and food!

2 comments:

Nydia said...

Busy and fun couple of days! :)

Hi, I'm pat of the Village too, and saw your eamil about your blog, it's awesome! Keep it up!

Kisses and bright blessings fom Nydia.

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