Good news! The August vacation my family had planned is still happening and we're now at the cabin enjoying ourselves. We arrived on Tuesday and my daughter has already had fun with the tire swing, the playset, the nearby creek, and some of the toys she brought. In the days leading up to leaving she painted an old piece of scrapwood like the US flag and now has it sitting on her sidetable at the cabin. It didn't take my wife and I too long to get unpacked and settled in to the cabin. We've already got a decent list of the things we either forgot to bring or were surprised to find not available at the cabin. We've stayed at this cabin twice before so we anticipated most of it, but there's always something.

After getting things unpacked and helping my daughter play on the tire swing and visiting the creek (which is really low this year) we drove into town to get something to eat. We walked through town, across the two foot bridges over the rivers to the town square and were saddened to see that M. Corona had ravaged the place in other ways. While this area of the state is largely unscathed by the virus itself, the governor's shutdown orders had put almost all the restaurants out of business. Angie and I explored the railroad tracks for a few minutes (with me having a very watchful eye and making sure she was never more than a few feet away from safety) and I showed her some railroad spikes and the like, before we wandered the park in the town square and visited a Revolutionary War memorial and then headed back across one bridge toward the only restaurant we saw open; we'd skipped it since we knew it was expensive, but it was the only one open. We got lucky that they had a table for us since they prefer reservations (especially with only 25% seating capacity rules) and while it took a long time to get our food, it was excellent and we polished everything off.

When we got back to the cabin we played around with the tire swing some more before crashing; my daughter turned the TV on and it was set to Disney XD and the new Duck Tales was on, so we watched that a bit before my wife crashed. We're in the middle of watching the new Duck Tales for a second time as it's surprisingly good. There is a nostalgia factor for me since my two brothers and I loved the original show as kids, but it's got genuinely good characters and plot and develops from episode to episode. There is a bittersweet quality as well; it makes me realize how much I miss my brothers. As a kid we wanted to be Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Now as a grown up and a father I find I identify more with Donald Duck in this cartoon, the protective Uncle who is not the cool relative but the one you can count on no matter what. But I still miss my brothers and being on vacation makes that separation more apparent. Oh, they're alive and all, we just don't get to see each other that often anymore. We weren't triplets, but we were close enough in age that we were always doing stuff together. We were each other's best friends growing up. I love my daughter and am doing all I can to make her childhood one of joy, learning, adventure, and something she will look back on fondly and yearn to pass on to her own children in time, but I do wish my brothers could be here with me too.

Yesterday we spent a good bit of time playing in the yard again. Angie broke out the tennis ball gun that my Mom bought for us years back (which none of our dogs care about and we cannot use at our house because the yard is too small); she played target practice with the tire swing and we joined her in it. We then brought her archery target and bow over and we all took turns practicing with it. Close to ten we headed into Ohiopyle and played at Cucumber Falls first. We all had swimming suits on of course and our water shoes! Angie and I headed into the falls while my wife took pictures from the dry land of which there was a lot because the falls were the smallest I had ever seen them! That full month of dry 90+ weather we had really lowered the water levels around here. There was still a good amount of nice cold water to play in, and Angie did try to splash me as she promised she would.

We then went down the stream to the river and did a little swimming there. There were some fishermen there at first, and we even saw one of them catch a fish, but they left not long after and for a little bit we had the river to ourselves. Rafters came by about eleven thirty and we watched them go down and into the rapids for a bit before we headed back to our car to get dried off and eat the sandwiches we packed. Thanks to Weird Al's song Foil, and we forgetting to pack sandwich bags, we had wrapped our sandwiches in aluminum foil and to be honest it really did a great job keeping them fresh.

After lunch we headed on over to the Natural slides and spent a few hours swimming and sliding over the rocks. Saw two kids get hurt when they slipped (nothing more serious than a busted lip thankfully) but it was a good lesson for my daughter, especially when I pointed out that both of those kids had not been wearing their water shoes. Angie kept hers on after that! I found one part of the creek where the water had bored an almost two-foot deep hole in the rocks underneath, and we had fun stepping in and out of it as we slid around. Before we left I showed Angie a small three foot waterfall you could sit in and we loved that. She kept saying it felt so weird! I loved the waterfall massage!

We headed back to the cabin after that with only one pit stop to pick up some firewood and a newspaper I could burn (I did look at the comics first). We cooked some hotdogs over the fire than made some campfire banana boats (slice a banana peel on the curved inside and stuff it with marshmallows and chocolate; wrap in tin foil and then cook it in the fire for five minutes; dig in with a spoon to enjoy). Angie had her bits of Hershey chocolate standing up and said they were Vicious Vikings (we've been watching some Horrible Histories too). Afterwards we played some more on the swing and playset; they have a kid's boat wheel on the top platform, and she wanted us to pretend we were sailing the sea. Everytime she got off I started doing the Jaws theme.

Eventually though my wife and I just collapsed in chairs around the fire while Angie sat next to it pretending with the rocks and pine needles and sticks; at first she made a hearty breakfast of eggs sprinkled with paprika, ham with cloves, potatoes and toast. Then she was trying to light her own fire with the needles and a singed stick from my fire; she sabotaged herself with the dirt she kept mixing into her pile, but we kept a close eye on her work. It never did anything more than smolder for a moment.

We tried to watch one of the movies we brought when we discovered the DVD player wasn't even hooked up to the TV, so we contented ourselves with a little Disney XD before heading to bed. I'll try swapping the cables on things today when we're ready to watch something. Today we're going to go Rafting down the river and I know we're going to be completely exhausted when we get back!

We've got a week out here and it feels great to be here out seeing the trees and breathing the fresh air and away from all the craziness of our day to day life. Both my furcons were canceled this year, and some of the things we'd like to do out here are closed thanks to M. Corona, but most things are still open and there is still a wide world of adventure to have and share. I hope everyone else has that chance too!

Dominus vobiscum