Weekends are for big plans...

“Let’s hike to the top of tower hill” Dad suggests.

“I’m thinking not so much…” our intrepid explorer retorts.

And so we went on a five mile hike, to the top of the big hill spiked with radio towers and back down again. Five miles round trip and he did a fine job. He’s always reluctant beforehand, but once on the trail and talking about something the time literally flies by. And boy can that kid talk…

He may be getting tired of walking, but most likely he’s worn himself out talking. I think he spent 20 minutes just saying “wouldn’t that be crazy?” to various imaginative ideas about underwater caterpillars. All because I misheard him say something as we crossed over a bridge. The secret incentive for anyone trying to motivate him for a long hike/walk/ski/etc… start him talking about something. Crazy subjects work best.

I noticed this in the basement the other day. Hmm, looks somewhat familiar

This is his plan for a zip line. He decided that he wants a zip line so I suggest he make a drawing, showing how it hooks up to his current (big) playground set. He comes down with this drawing and it shows the playground (on the right), with attachment for line, then it goes to this huge thing. What’s that? “The bigger playground we need to build.” And what’s this other thing further down the line? “Another playground, this one for snacking and visiting.” We grabbed a rope from the garage and tried to make a more modest zip line, but without a decent pulley mechanism he was just kind of stuck there, hanging in space.