Yesterday, Dad, Kev, & I made our annual trip to Hinckley. This year, Mom and the little ones came up with us, too. My dad has a sister that doesn't live too far away from there, so my grandma was able to spend some quality time with her daughter. Anyway, having the rest of the family with certainly added a different dimension to the trip. It was delightful, but certainly different.
I love going up there for various reasons - one of them being that it is so beautiful. Anyway, I thought I'd share some pics from this and previous years. I'm certainly not the greatest and I really couldn't do the scenery justice, but I thought you might like them, too.
Since I didn't have my camera with me all the time (I left it with mom so she could have pics of the kids), there won't be many of Kev or me. Not as many scenery pics from this year as I'd usually take. Usually by now there's a riot of fall colors or hardly any leaves, but with there has been so much rain in the last month that there was still a
lot of green. Anyway, here are some pics and our story.
We started our trip north by train.
And this is our cow:
Along our journey we crossed paths with some wild, ferocious wolves!
Beautiful fall leaves amongst the green.
I'm sure it was crowded up there!
But I get it all to myself.
A very young and, uh, confused buck.
You want to hear the real thing? Oh, okay.
Our day started out with a slightly later start than we planned. Then we had the drive up to Hinckley and beyond, all the way to my aunt's house, to whom the "wolves" belong. On the way up we stopped in at a small gas station for a rest stop, and inside and out it had neat little and not-so-little things and tons of antiques. I bought my mom's birthday present there. So anyway, we didn't get to our destination 'til ~2 p.m. which, if it had been just Dad, Kev, & me, would have been horrendous. Taken into account, though, that wasn't too bad. We got out the door ~ 4 1/2 hours later than we usually would and made a stop along the way. We saw some deer as we came in, and I spotted another walking across a fire break as we drove by.
We took the kids and Mom out to the closer stand. The little ones really enjoyed their first time up there. Mom was just enjoying the day and being able to be there with all of us. (Allergies used to prevent her from doing so.) Kev's pointing out where he and Dad saw some deer last year. I'm doing my job: survailling the land, seeing what needs to be done, come down, etc. I'm also along for mathematical calculations, etc.
We built a campfire for Mom and the kids as we headed out to work on the second stand. Needed more work than the first, but still in good shape. Mom and the little ones saw some deer while we were away, too. They stayed at the fire while we did some target practice. No worry, they were paper targets. It was growing dark quickly so there wasn't time for extra practice, but enough time to make certain Dad's was sited in, and for Kev and I to get a few shots in the target as well.
Shall I conclude with a tale from the end of our journey? As we were heading down my aunt's "drive way" after picking Grandma up, there was a deer on the side of the road. It's dark, the deer looks young. So we're speculating on what it might be, just watching it. There very beautiful creatures, you know. It's looking at us, seemingly mesmerized by our headlights. Very young, skinny, not quite a fawn. Small doe, asks one. Small, young buck is my guess. Some deer (A doe or two and some fawns) come our way from across the field, begin to cross the street. Young deer bounds back and forth across the street in protective manner as they cross. Then he prances our way - if you can call it that, almost half strut, some prance, and some wobble. Then he turns around, walks twenty feet away then turns towards the woods. He just stands there, and we're just sitting, watching. He looks back at our van, with those glowing, headlight eyes. Watches us some more, then charges at us. Will he hit us? Ah, he stops 10 feet before our van. Young buck with, say, 5 inch spikes. He looks at us some more. Then he runs right past the drivers side, after passing our van and trailor, dashes into the woods.
I thought of you all when I saw a postcard that said: "If a man speaks in the woods and there isn't a woman nearby to hear him, is he still wrong?" 'Cause I know that's one of your favorite questions.
Here are a few pics from previous years (gotta have some scenery pics, right?):
And of course:
