June 6 Deer Track Junction with CAL

Friday afternoon:  Cal's long awaited very first sleepover at Grandma Carol's finally arrived!!!! I think I might have been just as excited as Cal! I promised Cal we would go out to Deer Tracks Junction (Greenville) for a few hours--I was very relieved we had such perfect weather.

I took SO MANY PHOTOS ... and I can't seem to pick and choose very well; so I am going to post a LOT of pictures.

Cal's first request was to go to the giant corn bin (Gopher's Grain Bin) and play with the trucks and jump in the corn, etc. First, we had to get our tickets and purchase the food we wanted to feed the animals. I purchased a season's pass for myself ($75) so that I can bring one child at a time (children over 2 are $19.95 each)--this is only significant because ... well ... it's not like I am planning to bring more than one grandchild at a time (unless I have another adult helper). It's far more fun to have a 1-on-1 out at this darling farm. No competition! No whining about competing desires of where to go next, etc. 

So we purchased our tickets, which naturally have to be obtained at the far end of their super cool gift shop. Remarkably, Cal never even one time asked me to buy him anything at all. Not ONE thing. We looked at stuff and touched everything under the sun; but he was very content to put them back on their shelves when we were finished our examination of them.

We took the rather long walk to the corn bin. We also had to pick up the animal food we purchased, but you can only pick it up at the gift shop at the opposite end of the park. They should rethink this! But Cal never complained about the walking. He never once asked me to carry him. Five is a good age! We bought a cup of carrots for the goats, pigs, and camels. We also bought 3 seed sticks for the budgies.

Here are some photos of Cal in the corn bin: There is a 4 or 5 stair entrance down into the bin. Most of the children there were doing cannonballs from the stairway into the deep corn below. Cal thought this was great.

Little Cal's joy of flying through the air was ... completely contagious ... I was happy from the tip of my head right down to the toes just watching him.

Here is a picture of one of his landings!

Cal met a lot of other children playing in the corn. He is a very ready friend to everyone he meets. Don't you love that about little children?

Another few "landing" pics:

I'm not even exaggerating when I tell you that Cal did cannonballs for 35 solid minutes. He didn't even notice the trucks until one of the other kids zoomed one past him. THEN he saw them and we stayed another 30 minutes constructing roads and valleys, etc.

Cal is quite an exacting builder. He has very authentic sounds he makes of motors, etc. Although, one of the trucks actually made sounds if you pressed the right button. That was Cal's favorite truck.

I asked Cal if he wanted me to bury his legs or tummy ... but he declined. His roads were much more important.

After more than an hour in the grain bin, I finally convinced Cal to search out the bear enclosure with me. There is a nice overlook where you can watch them ... they were so interesting to watch! HUGE animals!

I was amazed at how FAST they are able to run! Yikes. And climb! Almost as fast as monkeys climb!

Deer Tracks Junction is such a nice place--their habitats are really big and have a lot of amenities for the animals--like this nice swimming pool for the bears!

I finally talked Cal off the bear overlook and led him over to where the budgies live. See next post.