A Hike With William Around Lake Fairfax

Camp Sharktooth officially ended when the school year started.  William is now distance learning, which includes sitting at his work desk next to Daddy's work desk.  But we got another weekend with William while his parents finished moving into their new home.  We picked our grandson up on Friday evening, September 11, 2020, and started the weekend the right way:  with pizza and a movie!

Before the movie, we had lots of banter, including a long discussion about the percussion instruments NaiNai (Kathy) has gathered in her travels.  She told him all about the ugly stick she discovered and learned to play in Newfoundland.  She also let him try out her neck washboard, which she learned to play at Betty's RV Park in Abbeville, Louisiana, and at Buck and Johnny's in nearby Breaux Bridge, thanks to our good RV friend Barb Forsman:

Saturday dawned a little early, with William and the cats all excited to see what adventures the day would hold.  After breakfast, we took William over to the skate park adjacent to our campground in Lake Fairfax Park:

William hasn't done much fancy scootering yet, so he stayed away from the jumps and rails, but he did get comfortable with the ups and downs, as you can see in this video of William taking a run around the skate park.

The big event of the day was a hike around Lake Fairfax, with a picnic lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!  The trail is well marked and well used, but there weren't too many others on the trail when we started out Saturday morning.  Here, Kathy and William enjoy the view from one of the bridges over inlet streams to the lake:

At another stream, David and William climbed down close to the water, where William spied some fish swimming in one of the deeper pools.

From time to time, the trail gave us open views of the lake.  Here, we spotted a large group taking kayak lessons on our end of the lake:

Everyone knows that David likes to take photos of fun guys, and William, being in the know, spotted this huge mushroom, which we measured by William's hand size to demonstrate how big it was:

The lake shore was also graced with waterlilies, making us think of the Monet paintings we enjoyed so much on our visit to Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris a couple years ago:

It wasn't long before we had completed our circuit of the lake.  We stopped for our picnic lunch, and then crossed the dam at the bottom of the lake.

Our dinner Saturday night was to be corn-on-the-cob and burgers grilled over an open campfire, followed by. . . What else? . . . S'Mores!  But while David was setting up the campfire, Kathy and William assembled the parts for Kickball Croquet, whose course they laid out behind our RV.  Here, they are inflating the kickballs:

Below, William demonstrates his natural skill at Kickball Croquet.  He won all three matches against us!

How can words possibly describe a delicious dinner cooked over a campfire?

All in all, Saturday proved an adventurous day.  We all fell into bed, tired, but ready to recharge for Sunday's adventures.