The THIRD adventure installment

Wow!  More than half way done with these fun adventures!  And I had some good ones these past 5 days!



Adventure #11:  Alpacas--A Biking Adventure

It turns out there is an alpaca farm in Cape May!  Tommy and I biked across the island to this alpaca farm.  It was a BEAUTIFUL spring morning, perfect temperature, shining sun, the birds were singing, and no bugs out!  Tommy fell asleep in his little trailer on the way there but woke up for me to take a picture--with my camera that had run out of batteries.  Ugh!  Luckily, I had brought my phone with me so I could take a picture to share with the world!  Sorry it's so hard to see the alpacas in it.  The alpacas looked at us and we looked at them, then we parted ways and Tommy once again fell asleep on the ride back. 

Adventure #12:  Gettysburg Day One--A Camping Adventure

We took Tommy on his first camping trip!  This was on a list of goals of things for Tommy to experience during his first year, so we are pretty excited that it turned out.  Tommy was a really good camper!  We drove out to Gettysburg, PA after church.  Unfortunately we got stuck in a traffic jam lasting a couple of hours so we had to dine at burger king instead of using our cool biolite to heat up soup.  But we made it to the campsite (the Gettysburg KOA) with just enough light left to set up the tent.  Our air mattress leaked quite a bit during the night, but Tommy slept really well snuggled between me and Skye.

Adventure # 13:  Gettysburg Day Two--A Battlefield Adventure

We woke up in the morning to a rainy day.  We took down our tent and had a bit of breakfast in the car while we waited for the KOA office to open so we could register. (We got there after hours the night before.)  We had a whole bunch of time to kill so we found two geocaches, then the rain let up for enough time to try out our cool biolite stove that Skye got for Christmas.  We had second breakfast, then checked out and drove into Gettysburg.  We started off visiting the battlefields, but it was too rainy to tromp around much so we focused our day on finding geocaches instead.  We found six more geocaches before we headed back, making a total of eight for the day--a record high for us!  Now, while Skyelr loves the history of the battle of Gettysburg, my favorite part of Gettysburg history is the Gettysburg Address.  So I dragged Skye and Tommy to the Soldiers' Cemetery where Lincoln gave the address and took pictures of almost everything.  I loved the quiet, hallowed feeling in the cemetery.  After that we drove to Little Round Top, a pivotal site in the battle (As a side note, The Killer Angels is one of my favorite books ever.  It is written by Michael Shaara and is a description of the battle of Gettysburg.  I recommend it!) and got rather lost.  The area has a bunch of roads so you can drive around and see the area, but most of them are one-way roads and it was a little ridiculous trying to navigate.  After we got out of that mess, we drove to the Maryland border which was nearby to get a cache in that state.  Then we lunched and drove back home, stopping on the way in Hershey, PA, where we had an ice cream sundae at the Hershey museum, a delectable detour!

A memorial for the Gettysburg Address

A sweet treat at Hershey!

Adventure #14:  Flowers and Old Ladies--A Garden Show Adventure

I was lucky enough to have my hubby come home from work early this day, so I had a babysitter and got to go on this adventure all by myself!  The Cape May Garden Club put on a free flower show at the Cape May Convention Center which I checked out for my adventure.  I had to fight my way through swarms of old ladies trying to figure out how to take pictures with their iPhones to see the displays.  My favorite displays were the dollhouse flower arrangements, they were so cute and petite!  A fun little excursion for me.  Wish my mom and mom-in-law could have come, too, they would have liked it!

These were the dollhouse arrangements

Adventure #15:  Zinnia Seeds--A Gardening Adventure

In the spirit of gardening, and to celebrate May Day, I planted my first zinnia seeds in my flower beds this afternoon.  I am going simple with my garden, just zinnias, and I really hope they come up and bloom, because they are some of my favorite flowers and I'd love to have zinnias all summer!