Friday
Came up a little after 6pm with Jake. This will be his first overnight trip to Puckaway, and he’s pretty excited. He slept most of the way up, so I got him situated in my trailer with the Happy Meal I picked up in Ripon on the way. Didn’t take him long to finish, and he was ready to go. We got his work gloves on and gathered up all of his trucks and tractors to play in the yard while I unloaded the truck. Clear skies and upper 60s. Mosquitoes are out, but not terrible. Opened up the trailer windows and turned on the fans to circulate some fresh air and found room in the fridge for the dozens of Gatorade and water bottles I brought up.
Jake wanted a four wheeler ride, so we took the blue ATV through the short marsh trails and climbed dad’s deer stand. We watched some jets doing maneuvers overhead for a while, which he got a big kick out of. It was approaching 8:00 and I wanted to make a quick run to town before it got too late so we made our way down and parked the ATV. Jake handles ladder climbing really well. On our way in to town, I stopped to get a better look at something huge on the side of the road. Big ol’ snapping turtle. Once I explained that it wouldn’t bite him just for looking at it, Jake came out of the truck to check it out, too. He thought it looked grumpy and dirty and was glad it didn’t want to bite us. Satisfied with our nature encounter, we drove on to Piggly Wiggly and the Dollar General to get some snacks and supplies. I knew we weren’t going to get out of the last store without a toy of some kind, so Jake spent the ride home checking out his new Hot Wheels.
