100619 + Up in the morning and L and the boys going over to Newcomerstown for the day. I was going to have the house to myself and get a ton of things done (catch up on sleep ;-) but L and I talked last night and for a while now I have been wanting to do something special with just Jack. I do all sorts of things with D&G, like help with their baseball games and D has scouts too. But J only does soccer and I don't really know how to help with that, so I feel he sort of feels like he gets the short end of the deal and gets dragged everywhere. So we agreed if it was ok with Jack that he does not go with them but stays with me all day and we can do anything he wants... tough choice...
Jack and I ran 1 errand, got some gas and headed to the Hocking Hills area. Our first adventure of the day was a two and a half hour canoe ride. We rode the bus with a bunch of drunks and got dropped off at the 'easy' point and left the drinkers on the bus (amen). We got out in the water and off we went. we had snacks and passed them back and forth with our oars, splashed each other, got turned around backwards, ran into trees, saw cool bird, talked and floated down the river. he is quite a good canoe'r. We made it back to the livery and set our target on our next destination...
I had some obscure directions and we went on some back-roads and up a hill that i was sure would soon drop off into nothing and that would be the end of us, but there it was high atop a hill a kids pleasure palace. The first thing we did was get Jack measured and holy cow he is big enough to get his very own gokart! We rode the go karts and raced and bumped into each other and had a blast!
Then we each got a bucket of balls and headed to the driving range. I got very serious and showed Jack how to line up, get your stance, hold your club, hold you head down, arms stiff, nice back swing and POW! I hit that ball as hard as I could and it flew straight, all 3 feet of its journey. Jack collapsed in a heap of laughing mass and we had a great time laughing at how horrible of golfers we were. There was one more thing to do here so we headed out for 18 holes of mini golf. It was HOT, I mean peal the paint off the ceiling hot and we were dripping with sweat but had a great game. Jack even got a hole in one!
So I Jack if we were ready to go after doing everything they had there once. NOPE! "I want to do the gokarts again!" So I dug into my pocket and off we went! We got another 10 minutes of fast wind in your hair bugs in your teeth fun and he smiled from ear to ear the whole time. We finished up and headed back into the office and he asked:
Can we do it one more time?...
Sure Jacky, lets do it, but this is the last of the cash I have so we can't do it again ok?
Yeah daddy, LETS GO!!!
We pretty much were family here now and the lady laughed as she gave us the tickets and back to the track we went for 10 more minutes. Well now that we are next of kin, and the only people there that we we saw for the day, they sort of wandered off and forgot to turn the timer on... We rode those karts around and around and around and around and the happiness on his face was of that I have can't remember. Eventually they stopped us or we ran out of gas, not sure which and our riddin was over. But Jack was not done there... the package we got had unlimited put-put... So back out for another 18 holes we went.
We then headed back down the steep slope and to a little diner we had past and had a wonderful dinner and HUGE chocolate milk shakes. There was a geocache in parking lot and we found it and then decided to find a couple more on the way home. We found another one in this metal wildlife reserve along the highway. Some nut-job built a bunch of steel animals and put them in a field. Here is the largest one on top of a perch. there were deer and turkeys too, all made of timy pieces of metal welded and painted. pretty cool. while we were walking through the field I showed jack the kind of sweet clover you can eat and thistles and told him if you blow all the white things off you get a wish. He tried over and ove,
I hope I can have a play date tomorrow with my buddy Donovan' BLOW, dang there are some left.
Try it again...
and he did. So back in the car for the hour drive homeward.
Jack played his DS on the ride home and we listened to some good music. He had his head down and when the car stopped I told him we were lost and were going to ask for direction. We got out and walked down the sidewalk a bit and I said I hear some people in this yard lets see if they can help. He did not recognize the house, but it was his buddy Donovan's house. When he realized where he was and Donavon saw him they ran to each other and gave each other a big hug. I sat on the back deck with Donovan's parents and the boys played until dark.
Finally home and telling tales of our day as he got ready for bed. In bed and a huge hug from him, he said
Dad, that was the best day ever
and gave me a kiss.
I will say it will be forever imprinted on my brain as one of the best days of my life too...
I love you Jacky.
