First Day of School: 15th Grade (3rd Year at Oberlin)

Ok so actually only one of these pics is a first day of school, but dorm move in and bike acquisition are key moments in college life. Z's back in Tank, in a single this time which they are THRILLED about, and taking 3rd year at Oberlin by storm. They are only on campus for Fall term because they will be spending Spring term in Woods Hole (Cape Cod) and then on a 6 week blue water voyage between St. Croix and Cape Cod researching micro-plastics in the Sargasso Sea, but that's another series of posts. Have a kickin' Fall term, kiddo!

First Day of School: 10th Grade

AJ started 10th grade, and drive themselves (heavily supervised by Wes, of course) to school today to start off their sophomore year of high school. Have a fantastically amazing school year, kiddo!

Have I mentioned the Rocks?

Hanging out at Second Rule, getting ready to climb

A random cave with a bunch of animal bones - something that looked pelvis-y, maybe dog sized, and lots of smaller bones too.

Z and N sizing up Winter Harvest

This was truly unposed, and at the time I didn't even realize Nick and Z were "standing" on Charlie's feet! Wes checking either food hours or weather. Possibly both.

Had a super fun time at Reed's Creek! Everyone climbed the 5.7 Second Rule (Zara led it, Charlie cleaned it) and then a combo of Zara and Nick lead Winter Harvest, which included some extreme MacGyvering of running the stick clip up to Nick who was 50 or so feet in the air, but apprently they've been there, done that and have already perfected this technique and it just seemed awesomely improv'd. Charlie slayed the top rope version, with yours truly belaying, and while Wes would have liked a crack at it, it was getting late and people were getting hungry. We ended up grabbing a smorgasbord of random but real food at the Sheetz in Petersburg, because even on a Saturday nothing is open after 8pm out here. A good day off was had by all.

My sixth favorite thing about camp

or maybe it's my seventh?

Hard to know. But getting to do camp AND hang with fam? One of the best for sure.

Milla comes to visit... again!

Our favorite Finn is back! Milla came to visit before camp this year, got to overlap for 1 trip to Kings Dominion and about 24 hours with Z before they went to be core staff at camp (and get there a week before us). We still had escape room and hiking fun, but we also spent time getting ready for camp by improving the drainage in the yard to prevent basement flooding (spoiler alert - didn't quite fix the problem) and also went to Kings Domnion again (season pass ftw) though i missed both trips because...work. But in just afew days we're all off to CHM so life is GOOD.

Playing in Pittsburgh

Turns out Pittsburgh is pretty much the perfectly placed meet up locale for a long weekend rendezvous with your Michigan BFFs. Gabi and Nick met up with me, AJ and Wes for about 60 hours of mostly non-stop fun. There was some sleeping in there, but also a trip to the science museum (and everyone who isn't me's first laser show!), a day at the (ball)park, some awesome flat backyard astroturf soccer practice, a trip up the funicular, some awesome VRBO-cooked dinners and, of course, ice cream! (not pictured, but definigtely consumed). Thanks to Zara for holding down the homefront with Zelda for the weekend.

Snow Canyon State Park

We packed a lot of fun into the last day of our trip, and only some of it is pictured here.

We slept in a bit and said goodbye to our tiny house, stopped for some coffee and breakfast treats at this little shed in the parking lot of the local gas station, and then made our way to St. George, UT. We had some crazy fusion tacos for lunch, then spent some time trekking around Snow Canyon State Park. Depsite its name, this was probably one of the least snowy places we visited all week! Some cool highlights included a lot of pertrified sand, some old lava tubes, and just a great amount of varation in scenery over a 4 or so mile circuit hike. We finished up mid-afternoon and began our time zone jumping back towards Vegas, where we'd be flying out on the red eye. AJ fell asleep in the car, and so in a nod to the olden days when we'd spend considerable amount of time sitting in a car with a sleeping child, we drove through a Starbucks and found a shady spot to park in. As dinner time was approaching, we made our way to the Vegas arts district (we saw the strip from a distance but were avoiding it like the plague). AJ woke up just as we were parking, STARVING, so we popped into the first decent looking restraunt nearby which had a ridiculously long wait considering it looked half full? Reservations, I guess?

So with good will fading fast and crankiness amping up, we walked into a decent looking brew pub on the next block. Seemed like a reasonable menu, everyone found something they liked, but when we went to go find a table, they seemed largely reserved... for some sort of Purdue alumni gathering? Turns out we had acidentally "crashed" the Purdue v Michigan playoff game... whoops! Also hilarious since we couldn't care less about basketball, but we do have a fondness for the Maize and Blue... who were totally kicking Purdue's butt. So that was fun to slyly cheer for as we ate our burgers and GIANT soft pretzels. Found decent ice cream near by, walked around a bit then dropped the rental car back at the airport, made our way through security - AJ has TSA precheck from travelling with my parents last year, so they very bravely cleared security on their own while Wes and I went the "normal" route.

We arrived at the gate in plenty of time to sit around for a while and gather some last minute snacks. I think this is the flight we ended up in the exit row, swapping with some non-exit row able passenegers. We also took advantage of free gate checking since the flight was once again full, so less stuff to schlep around the airport with us. Flight back was a bit longer because we had to fly around some weather, also bumpier due to said weather, but everyone was a champ and survived. Landed at Dulles, retrieved Ivy, charged her up and got some coffee and breakfast snacks and made our way back to C'ville. Wes was so tired from not really sleeping on the flight that I actually drove the 2nd half of the trip home, so you know it was bad ;) Arrived back to a very happy Zelda and everyone took naps. WOOT!

Water Canyon

So Thursday started out pretty chill, but with the worst of the incoming weather slated for the afternoon we didn't sleep in too late because we wanted to get a hike in. The day before Whit, our canyoneering guide, had regaled us with tales of a really cool, close to us and also kinda off the beaten path hike at Water Canyon. So that was our destination today. We had a quick breakfast, packed some snacks and made our way to the trailhead, which wasn't hard to find but you had to drive on some pretty dodgy roads and Naomi aka Nay, the rental nissan maxima, was not a fan. Wes had done a little pre-search so we knew a bit about the hike, and that there was a 2nd parking lot (with the unbiquitous extremely decent pit toilet) closer to the trail head, so we were not lured afield at the first lot. Also, BIG shout out to Joe's Guide to Zion National Park for being everything AllTrails isn't. I mean, someitmes Alltrails is really all you got, but Joe's guide is FANTASTIC and the photography is stunning.

All of this is to say we had somewhat of an idea about the hike, but the trail's not really blazed though the path is generally not too difficult to follow, and most little forks come back to the main trail. I think we took a "wrong" turn once or twice but generally it's a "go up" kind of hike. The hike was lovely (and a bit chilly) but we didn't stop much since the skies were getting darker and we were really hoping to make "Top Rock" before the snow? sleet? rain? hit in earnest. While we weren't too concerned with flooding, there was also a bit of a waterfall you had to kinda climb up/over/next to, and if we were to get A LOT of rain quickly, that situation might have turned messier than we were really prepared for. So, we pushed forward, and had a lovely hike with magnificent (if overcast) views... but just as we were asking ourselves, for the 5th time in 10 minutes, "is this rock Top Rock?" it started to rain.

We figured it was nature's way of hurrying us back along with our day, so we turned around and walked back down. Things were definitively slippier on the return + rain trip, but we kept 3 points of contact (and our wits!) about us. People were also getting hungry/cranky/slightly concerned for our marginally questionable choices, but we all made it out of the canyon safe and sound and only kinda wet. I think lunch was some combo of leftovers and maybe some of that fab grocery store sushi/poke we've been enjoying, it's been a few months so I don't exactly recall. We were planning, assuming the rain wasn't too torential, a trip to St. George and the climbing gym there, but AJ wanted a nap and I had some work to do, so we ended up having some more chill downtime, watching the rain fall at the tiny house, etc. Dinner was, I believe, some above adequate Thai food (not a lot above, but definitely better than average) and then a stop at DQ for some Blizzards. We went to bed on the earlier side (after more Elementary, I'm sure) because it was going to be our last decent sleep for a while since we were taking the red eye home the following evening....