100807 - ZIP it good!

100807 - Up and D had baseball practice today, but I said hey lets skip it...  I grabbed D and we headed South to Hocking Hills and a our first stop in the 'Hocking Peaks Adventure Park', a zip line course.  We got suited up and waited for our ride up to the woods.

When we got in the woods the instructor gave his instructions and I interrupted him and offered to the rest of the group (about 8 other adults) to let Dylan go first and if he lived through each of the obstacles we could all then confidently follow him.  The look on D's face was priceless and the rest of the group agreed.  So D did the training course win no problem.  Then we got into the good stuff and climbed up and up in the trees.  There were swinging bridges, 2x4s supported by cables, tight ropes, and lots of zip lines.  We found ourselves about 60 feet in the air for 3 hours.  It was great and we both had a BLAST!  The last zip line was a HUGE one and about 200 yards long and went over a pond.  Later D said he was pretty scared on some of the obstacles, but he lead the adults the entire was and did a fantastic job.

After the zip course we went for a drive back some road where you get the feeling no one will ever find you...  And there it was the ATV course.  We got tested on our abilities to drive a big old 400cc 4 wheel drive ATV.  D did really well handling all that power.  The instructor then took us up through the woods on the trails to test us even further and we ended up in a wide open field.  All good as the instructor drove away.  I said you ready?, he said yes and i gunned it.  I took off flying across the field, pulled a tight turn, leaned into it and shot dust and rocks all over the place.  Next it was D's turn.  He gunned it, pulled a tight turn, didn't lean and I watched in slow motion as he rolled off the 4 wheeler, holding on with one hand until it ran over his leg and he let go...  :-o  
I rushed over to him and he had already jumped up and was chasing his ATV across the field.  We agreed to leave the ATVs in low gear for the rest of our hour...  After the field we hit the trail in the woods.  It was really cool, through huge puddles, tons of mud and trees.  D did great, he only ran into me once and hit only 2 trees.  Before we knew it the hour was up and we had to find food, we were starved.
We found a Dairy Queen and loaded up with food and ice cream and then off to find some geocaches.  The first 2 we couldn't find or were not willing to walk through the bushes or put our hands in the wires to try and find it.  The 3rd one was close to a flee market with lots of people around.  It was the standard lift the collar around the light post and find the cache.  Well when I lifted the collar a swarm of wasps flew out at us!  We screamed like little girls to the amusement to those watching and retreated to the flea market where we found wonderful things.  A detour took us to a neat park where our cousins had hid a geocache.  My phone was about out of juice and we headed out anyway... then the battery died...  Almost lost, then another family with a GPS showed up looking for the same cache.  We tagged along and all searched for it.  D was the one that eventually found it.  All adventured out we headed home.
Dylan and I had a great day; loads of adventure, new thing and just nice time to be together.  He is growing into a fine young man.