Adventures of John V

Last week I stayed home from work to help Bethany around the house while we cared for days-old Matthew Paul Stone. During this time I thought it would be nice to spend some quality time with John boy as well. So, we did some biking, hiking and exploring.

I wasn't sure how much biking and hiking John boy could handle, so I pushed him to his limit (probably a hair farther than his limit on Monday because he started to say his leg hurt when we were little more than half way home).

We did all kinds of things. We hiked along the fields around our house, we looked for good spots to sit where there were no ants or spiders and that would be comfortable so we could drink water (I had a "survival backpack", we could have survived 3 days at least if we had too). He learned which trees provided the best shade to sit under. He learned how to clear a spot for a tiny fire in case we had to make food. He learned how to put out a fire by burying it with sand and then stomping on it just to be sure. He learned how to point to north using a compass. He knew, most of the time, which way home was even when he couldn't see it.

Below is a map of our travels. Green area is area hiked. Red lines are the roads (and dirt path) we biked on. The fire symbol is places we practiced fire safety. Blue markers are things we saw along the way. If you bookmark the map you can come back every so often to see what other adventures John boy and I (and soon Bethany and Matthew) went on.

View Hiking and Stuff in a larger map