7-9 on packing
I always seem to get a 7-9 on packing. (In * World parlance, this means an incomplete success; you made progress towards what you were trying to do, but something went wrong too.)
I guess I did pretty well for GenCon, but for the last couple get-aways I've managed to forget something important - whether a laptop cable or, say, Jill's bag full of clothes. So that didn't start the trip out on the best foot.
Here's some other thoughts:
+ the state par we went to, Spring Mill, has a surprising number of cool things that aren't trails. It has several caves (quite an extensive network underneath, actually), a Pioneer village, and a memorial to one of the first astronauts.
- Most of those things close after October. You can walk through the pioneer village, but it's not opened up. It was still cool to look at. The caves are mostly closed up as well, partly because of their poor bats and the white nose fungus.
+ There's about 8 miles of trails to hike along.
- We did most of the trails and they aren't as exciting as, say, Turkey Run or Brown County. Turkey Run has the best trails mile for mile, but we've hiked pretty much all of them at this point..
+ Upland Brewery has done crazy well since we were first there 6 years ago. They've probably doubled in size and the beer is still great. The food is honestly a bit spendy but it was a lot of fun to go.
- Four hours in the car is an awful lot for a weekend trip. It's honestly a lot regardless; maybe we should try switching off for drives longer than three hours. (It was slightly less, but only slightly.) Or building in breaks. Despite what I thought, Spring Mill is about the same distance away as Brown County. In this case it was something of a moot point due to availability, though.
+ The Exotic Feline Rescue Center was pretty impressive. Just hidden away, a little ways off the state highway, all of these lions, tigers, bobcats, and pumas. A few other cats, too. The way that their body language and mannerisms are so similar to housecats is really something - but a 600 pound housecat would be pretty intimidating, too.
+ We gave Jurassic Park 3 the Rifftrax treatment, which it did deserve. It's a bad movie but not offensively so; it's mostly going through the motions of JP1 without the novelty. It's still less upsetting than the Lost World, which I guess I should rewatch sometime to see if it's just as painful as I remember.
+ Hiking all day in good weather is hard to beat. Even if the trails aren't like SUPER EXCITING it clears your head in a way other things don't.
+ I do feel a lot better than before we went. I was sliding towards a tired, bitter place pretty quickly. (Maybe more accurately, a more tired and bitter place.) I'm still frustrated by some things, especially at work, but I feel a lot more equipped to handle them.
+ I got to spend a whole weekend with Jill.
I guess I did pretty well for GenCon, but for the last couple get-aways I've managed to forget something important - whether a laptop cable or, say, Jill's bag full of clothes. So that didn't start the trip out on the best foot.
Here's some other thoughts:
+ the state par we went to, Spring Mill, has a surprising number of cool things that aren't trails. It has several caves (quite an extensive network underneath, actually), a Pioneer village, and a memorial to one of the first astronauts.
- Most of those things close after October. You can walk through the pioneer village, but it's not opened up. It was still cool to look at. The caves are mostly closed up as well, partly because of their poor bats and the white nose fungus.
+ There's about 8 miles of trails to hike along.
- We did most of the trails and they aren't as exciting as, say, Turkey Run or Brown County. Turkey Run has the best trails mile for mile, but we've hiked pretty much all of them at this point..
+ Upland Brewery has done crazy well since we were first there 6 years ago. They've probably doubled in size and the beer is still great. The food is honestly a bit spendy but it was a lot of fun to go.
- Four hours in the car is an awful lot for a weekend trip. It's honestly a lot regardless; maybe we should try switching off for drives longer than three hours. (It was slightly less, but only slightly.) Or building in breaks. Despite what I thought, Spring Mill is about the same distance away as Brown County. In this case it was something of a moot point due to availability, though.
+ The Exotic Feline Rescue Center was pretty impressive. Just hidden away, a little ways off the state highway, all of these lions, tigers, bobcats, and pumas. A few other cats, too. The way that their body language and mannerisms are so similar to housecats is really something - but a 600 pound housecat would be pretty intimidating, too.
+ We gave Jurassic Park 3 the Rifftrax treatment, which it did deserve. It's a bad movie but not offensively so; it's mostly going through the motions of JP1 without the novelty. It's still less upsetting than the Lost World, which I guess I should rewatch sometime to see if it's just as painful as I remember.
+ Hiking all day in good weather is hard to beat. Even if the trails aren't like SUPER EXCITING it clears your head in a way other things don't.
+ I do feel a lot better than before we went. I was sliding towards a tired, bitter place pretty quickly. (Maybe more accurately, a more tired and bitter place.) I'm still frustrated by some things, especially at work, but I feel a lot more equipped to handle them.
+ I got to spend a whole weekend with Jill.