Last night, as I pulled into the driveway, Hubster was pushing our bikes through the gate to go get air in the tires. He didn’t tell me where we were going, he just loaded our bikes into the truck and whisked us away.

Hey, who am I to argue with a man who suddenly wants to do something active and spend some family time together doing it? Not me! I just kept wishing I knew where we were going. All those to-do lists I was talking about were bubbling around in my brain. Not that I didn’t want to go…I just wanted to know where and for how long…Ok, I admit, I just wanted to be in control a little bit.

We pulled into one of Hubster’s local hunting haunts and unloaded the bikes. The pretty nature trail leading out of the driveway was gravel. The sky was a threatening gray. But what an amazing ride! In the first stretch, we were greeted by dozens of frogs jumping across the trail. I even saw a snake slither into the marshy grass at one point!

A little farther down, we rode out onto a breaker wall. I didn’t realize that the wall was even there, let alone that it did a huge loop through the lake and ended back at the parking lot. Amazing! We took a bike ride along this fabulous breaker wall, watching the sea gulls, ducks and carp do their thang. We even stopped at the pass-through gate for boats and watched the fish for awhile.

Once we got back to the truck, it finally started raining. As we were leaving, Peanut said “there’s a deer!” He was pointing at a statue in someone’s front yard. In the very next yard, I shouted out “no, there’s a deer!” A real deer! One that was moving! We had a good little chuckle at that little coincidence.

I just marvel sometimes at how a simple little trip like this could turn into a full memorable event. We took one simple weeknight, a night that we easily could have dedicated to vegging in front of the tube or cleaning yet another mess and we tried something different. And it didn’t cost anything. And it was so perfect.

I mean, we saw dozens of frogs, a snake, hundreds of ducks and other birds, jumping fish, wild turkeys and a deer. And we biked through the middle of a lake. All in one little weeknight. Wow!

Seriously, some things really are better than gold.

Beautiful views

And learning opportunities. We went on a little bone hunt
and talked about what animals they might be from.
Obvs this one is from a crawfish

A little island. Hubster says it holds an aviary hatchery.

Make me a promise, and do something a little bit different tonight.
What are your favorite on-a-whim memories?