Henry's S24O

After Sam's solo backpacking trip, Henry lobbied hard for a camping trip of his own. I was sick last weekend, so we had to delay until it was now the last weekend of summer. After raining hard Friday, Saturday was clear and perfect, and we loaded up and hit the road.

Unlike most previous S24Os, Henry was riding his own bike and even carrying most of his own gear. Progress! We took some well earned breaks along the way to camp:

Backpacking with Sam

Sam's middle name is "Walker," and true to his name, he's far and away the best walker of our three kids. I tested him after the Fourth of July parade, when we walked home from our old neighborhood. About four miles. He did fine, so I started scheming for something bigger. Last weekend, we did it.

Sunday after lunch, we pointed the car towards Dayton. Our destination was the Twin Valley trail, a backpacking route that connects two metro parks in the Dayton area. We started on the north end, in Germantown Metro Park:

Our route had us walking about five miles on Sunday, camping at Cedar Ridge, and six miles back to the car on Monday. The first bit was through an open field:

Off to the Races

Last weekend was the Indy 200 at Mid Ohio, so three generations made the drive up US42 on Saturday to check out the races. Our first stop was the Honda hospitality tent to mooch some free water and pretzels, then we stopped to check out the display cars:

Alas, neither the Civic Type R nor the NSX is available at my pay grade, so we wandered around until we ran into a Wookie: