After our breakfast yesterday morning, we piled into the car, and I backed down the steep, pot-hole filled, dirt road – and I didn’t spin out once!

It was a lovely Saturday morning, it was about 70 degrees, and we were on backroads with no timetable. Sofia asked if she could roll her window down and I thought that was a great idea. We both rolled down our windows and I opened the sunroof. I turned on the radio and The Moody Blues were singing Your Wildest Dreams and I sang along, Sofia picked up the tune quickly, and sang along too. We laughed and the next song was another she has heard often enough in my car, The Doobie Brothers singing Black Water, we sang loud and she asked if she could put her hand out for a minute and giggled at the wind rippling in her fingers.

We went down the dirt road and into a state park. Deer Creek is a beautiful area and we spied some nice places for fishing. The creek was loud, I could hear it from the porch of the cabin. We drove around the park, getting the lay of the land before settling on a spot.

The creek was only 4-6 inches deep, the water was so clear, and so icy cold. I had brought bug spray and sunscreen just for this part of the trip. Did I bring them? No, they were on the counter in the cabin next to the bottles of water I wanted to bring. The lawn chairs we could borrow from the cabin? On the porch of the cabin. But, Sofia didn’t know I forgot them and it didn’t diminish the fun. And God provided a chair for me, a small tree stump. I put the dogs blanket on it and I was set, until later in the day when the old butt muscles started to protest every move.

We tried casting a line, and the bobber got stuck in the remnants of a beaver dam. It was lost forever down stream. The second cast caught us a tree, I was able to untangle the line from the bark and I switched to side-casting for her, that worked a little better. But then she decided that not having a bobber was stopping the fish from “jumping on her hook”. I added another bobber, as I was tying it on, she asked, “What do we do if I catch a fish?” She asked this with a nervous tone, I told her that if we did catch a fish, that I would remove it from the hook and release it to the water because we weren’t going to eat fish that night. Her shoulders dramatically dropped and she replied, “Oh good! ‘cause I hate fish!”

We skipped rocks after fishing was no longer fun and the dog splashed around in the water. I smiled at the simple joys of childhood, throwing rocks into water and having a dog to join you.

After the the water fun, we went to explore the town and find lunch. The town had an event called Bailey Days, and it drew a BUNCH of people! In Bailey, there is also a Sasquatch Outpost but it not as accessible due to the event, but we want to go and look for sure!

We found a cute place for lunch, Coney Island Boardwalk. The old timey cars weren’t there, but we were served fast and ate outside with the doggo. The same good dog who splashed in the creek was now trying to pounce chipmunks and give their tiny hearts an attack.

I drove out of Bailey, towards FairPlay and out of the corner of my eye, I saw something. It was up on a peak, overlooking CR 43. I grabbed a picture and found out later it is a 55 foot statue of Jesus Christ. It’s called Christ The King and was erected in 1933, at that time, it was the 2nd tallest statue of Christ in the world. It sits on private property and watches over the travelers and campers at a near by YMCA camp.

Once we did our little adventure, we came back to the cabin to play on the deck and make dinner together.

Lots of firsts for me this trip, never rented an Air BNB before, never been to Bailey, never took a kid fishing alone before, and my dog had never been to a creek before! But this was such a good trip and one I didn’t realize I needed.

The goal is 60 new things before I turn 60 and I have 36 more to go and I can’t wait!