into the woods

 


Friday's big Mizzou win, led us into the weekend in high spirits, and hoping for the best in the upcoming game Sunday.
Saturday we were back in Floyd, enjoying a great breakfast at the Blue Ridge Restaurant, which is THE place for breakfast in the fine town of Floyd. Following this, we headed on a twisty, turny drive to the Rock Castle Creek Nat'l Recreation Area for some hiking and exploring. On the way, we wound around and over mountains, great views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, preparing to burst with spring. We even spotted a "wild" toilet out in the woods on the way. Kinda wondered how it got there considering there was no remaining home nearby. Hmm? I digress.
The Rock Castle Creek trail might have indeed led us to a Rock castle, well...if we had remained on the trail. We stayed on the trail, progressing nicely alongside the creek for sometime, until the trail forked and turned away from the clear, bubbling water of the creek. That's where we lost the trail. The boys insisted on following the creek, which proved a great way for spending the day, discovering new ways to cross a creek on a fallen log, finding rocks we don't see in Missouri, we believe to be a pink quartz and some shiny, glittery galena. The boys were one skipped rock away from removing their shirts and diving in, when we followed the trail back, to head home for some all important cupcake baking and scootering, before a dinner invitation.
The Groot family welcomed us to their gorgeous home and farm with generosity galore. It was an evening of delicious food, lots of fun and many races around the barn. They had a band of "wild" Naraganset (sp) heritage turkeys, some fainting goats, more heritage breed hens and goat mothers-to-be. Henry and Wynne even got to search for eggs and assist with feeding chores. The boys asked Gail and Harry many times if they could just stay. This earned the boys an invite for goat milking time, coming soon. It was tempting to leave the boys with them...but alas, we feared for Harry and Gail's survival, so home it was with two very worn out boys. And sweet farm and wilderness dreams for those two very adventurous boys.