2012-09-22 Big Bone Lick State Park - R-pod's, Bison & Segways

There was a great little Rpod rally this weekend at Big Bone Lick State Park in Northern Kentucky and we and several other camping friends were invited. Big Bone Lick is considered the birthplace of American paleontology due to the first official archeological dig done by Merriweather Clark (of Lewis & Clark fame) back in 1807 and sponsored by then President of the United States Thomas Jefferson. The site has bones from Mammoths, Mastodons, ancient moose, ancient bison and American bison and two different species of giant ground sloths all of which used to roam the U.S. The bones from Big Bone Lick have been distributed throughout the world and the specimens in many museums around the globe are from this site! It's a really cool place because the park has a museum with displays and bones, native American artifacts, a gift shop, trails throughout the salt licks and forest and even a live herd of American bison. It was a lot of fun as the park held a interpretive learning type event on Saturday hosted by some actual archeologists, paleontologists and other assorted professors and subject matter experts. We were able to Segway most of the trails which worked great for me as there is no way I otherwise would have been able to view it all. On Saturday evening Carie & I gave all the rallier friends the opportunity to try the Segways and several of them took us up on the offer. All did well and a couple of them took off on their own adventure and disappeared out of site!  LOL!  HA!

 

 

Actual whooly mammoth skull in the museum dug up from this site!

 

 

 

 

Check out the shirt! It's my official Segwaying shirt that Carie

surprised me with a couple of weeks ago ("Paul Blart - Mall Cop"):

 

 

 

 

 

One of the salt licks that brought all the animals here throughout the ages. The white slick is the salt -

 

 

Back at camp -

Nancy, Cindy, "Tink", Sheila, Carie & Rosemary

 

 

 

Ella, Nancy, Steve, Tom, "Tink", Sheila, Cindy & Carie

 

Ella, Nancy, Steve, Tom, "Tink"

Rosemary, Rick ("Coach"), Mary, Don and Rita (?) & Ed (?). Rita and Ed have chestnut trees and provided all with some so we actually did roast chestnuts over an open fire on Saturday Morning!!!

Todd & Karen

Steve, Sheila, Marilyn & Bill and "Tink" in the background

 

Tom & ella's Airstream ("Silver Mine...and His") in the foreground with Johanna "Tink" Bryant's Rpod in the background

Nancy Martin in her aqua blue T@B and Marilyn & Bill's brand new 6 week old Rpod -

 

 

Our T@B with the new visor. It's cute as a button but not very practical:

 

 

 

 

Steve Thomas attempting a Segway "glide"...

 

 

2012-09-14 KOA Dayton (Repelling Key Bank Tower)

Well this weekend was pretty cool. One of my nephews, Matt McDowell works at The Greater Miami Valley Big Brothers And Big Sisters organization and he organized a fund raiser and anyone who could raise $1000 dollars or more could repel down the 27 story Key Bank tower in downtown Dayton, OH! I know, right!?!? Well I didn't do it but I took pictures of these others doing it.  LOL  my excuse is I couldn't raise a thousand bucks...that's my story and I'm sticking to it.  LOL!!! Anyway, Matt repelled and so did one of my co-workers, Steve Roy. We all had a great time! Steve actually raised $3000 dollars including a matching contribution from work, so that was cool. After the event Carie & I did some Segway gliding around downton Dayton but the photos below are the boys repelling and a couple pics back at camp. Enjoy...

Steve:

 

 

 

 



 

 



 

 

Matt:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And in case you get lost in Dayton -

 



 





 



And back at camp...

 



 

 

 



 



 



 



2012-08-18 Miami Whitewater Forest w/Anne and "Chief"

We had a really fun weekend! We went to another one of the Hamilton County (OH) Park Districts park, Miami Whitewater Forest. They have an 8 mile multi-use trail that parrallels their horse trail (plus several other shorter trails) and we met Carie's good friend, Anne who brought her awesome horse, Chief. We rode our Segways and Anne rode Chief and we all had a blast! Chief is a great horse and very calm and patient. We've ridden this trail with Anne & Chief before but this is the first time we've camped there. Chief treats the Segways as part of his "herd" and follows them and if we're on the multi-use trail Chief wants to join us so Anne has to keep sterring him back to the horse trail. It's cute! A few time Carie took the lead on the horse trail with Chief & Anne right on her heels. Anne brough him back to the campground and tied him to a tree in our site and he quickly became the hit of the campground! Anne gave several little kids rides on Chief right there through the campsites. It was pretty cool! Funny thing is the three kids on Chiefs back in the last two photos at one point all slid off in unison and two were crying on the ground but after their initial shock all wanted back up and continued their ride! There's just something about kids and horses, especially little girls.

Enjoy the pics!

Here's our camping setup:

Carie - Not so thrilled to pose for my picture!

At the rallying point with Anne & Chief...

Along the trail

 

Carie riding Chief and Anne riding Segway

 

Here how Chief got his name. Notice the Indian chief on his side?!?! His chin, lips, nose and eyebrow are facing Chief's rump and he has two feathers sticking out towards his back and mane!



Carie, Anne and Chief back at our campsite -

The "pony rides" begin back at camp!