Monday Turtle Tracks | 2016

This week has rough written all over it. Recovering from a past busy week, an exam this week, a very long work day ahead, not getting any sleep, and just a bunch of things that need done. I'm stressed and so very tired.

After getting up at 4:00 in the morning and not getting much sleep after, I got ready to head to my moms work. She works close to the Wildlife rehab so it's easier to just go with her. Determined to study, I went into the school till the Starbucks kiosk in the school opened and got a nice cup of Breakfast Blend coffee, and it was pretty dang good.

With the chilly mornings, it hit the spot quite nicely. It was the only thing I've wanted for the past week.

I hung out in the garage with Mom for a bit before being a responsible college student and procrastinating to schedule my exam.

She was getting "bulbs"(that aren't technically bulbs) planted into boxes for next year.

Then I headed off to the Wildlife rehab. Nothing was agreeing today. Couldn't get a hold of any of the birds for the life of me to transfer them to new cages and get their current ones cleaned.
On the other hand, I held a Screech Owl and the Opossums, for the other volunteer who was nothing but funny and kind to work with.

This is one of my favorite turtles. He's missing a back leg and I just feel bad for him, it certainly doesn't stop him from getting around though.

Started A Mealworm Farm

After telling Mom stories of things that happen at the wildlife rehab, she decided she wants a mealworm farm for the birds. She said as long as I take care of it and she doesn't have to look at them, we're good. Easy.

After reading a few blog posts they are really low maintenance to keep. You basically put them in a container with ventilation, add some corn meal/oatmeal for their home, something for moisture, and keep them in a warm area.

So that's exactly what I did.

Picked up this container at dollar tree. Basing off the size of the container at the wildlife place, this was the most alike thing they had there.

Added about a cup and a half of oatmeal and cornmeal we had on hand, then mixed it up. Later I added a banana peel and a slice of bread to keep it moist.

Next came the mealworms. They say it's best to buy them from somewhere more 'local' than cheap on the internet because they can be fed with strange chemicals or whatever for size. I got mine from PetSmart, the lady said they weren't fed on anything special. It looks like ground up oats in the container they were kept in.

They are being kept in the tool kitchen behind a door tucked away with the lid on diagonally to be safe. A week ago I added about 125 more meal worms. 

So hopefully things will move along wonderfully.

Zip-lining | Ohiopyle | September | 2016

After our first failed attempt at zip-lining, this time, we did it. Me and my mom were on our way to her work and we were sitting in the car talking about it and I got on and looked up to see how the scheduling worked then two minutes later we'd just booked ourselves a day to go.

If we're going to be completely honest, I don't know where the sudden desire to go zip-lining came from. I'm afraid of heights. Ladders? No. The two-step stool at work? Honestly, not the greatest balance. But for some reason, this needed to happen. And my mom wasn't thrilled that I wanted her to be my buddy for the course.

So once the day came we were up early and headed out the door. We turned our papers into the Outdoor Center and headed up to the course.

The one instructor said it's 30ft-40ft up, that with each section it goes up a little higher. They have two courses, the Adventurer, and Explorer. It was a bit of an accident signing up for the Adventurer once but if we would have done the Explorer I would've really regretted not going on this one. The Explorer is just not as high and it's a shorter course.

We went up early so we had time to spare and the second instructor had. It's name is Sheba, he got her the night before.

So cute!

I didn't have any pockets, and I didn't trust keeping my phone in my hoodie pocket, but Mom had her camera and she was sneaky and took some pictures.

There's about 5 different obstacles to go through before getting to the actual zipline. Which wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was gonna be. The hardest was the log you had to walk across with ropes hanging on one side to hold onto. Me and logs don't mix, my balance ain't that great.

BUT WE MADE IT.

Mom did great too. I'm so proud of her for going through it!

By this time it was starting to sprinkle, the weather was nice to hold off on raining while we went through the course, but we didn't let it hold us back.
No, it was time for biking, another spontaneous choice made by my mom and what I've been wanting to do since the first time we'd gone. I love riding bikes.

 

 It was such a stunning sight. These are the moments I live for. It was foggy, and quiet, and any other bikers we came across there was just a mutual respect for each other with exchanging hellos and moving out of the way for others to pass. 

 Look how stunning that is!!! If only I'd had my DSLR, gosh, beautiful.

We rode for an hour, don't know how many miles we did, it had to be at least two miles one way. Either way, when we got back we were hungry.

We went into Paddler's Pizza. Mom got a slice of pizza and I got sweet potato fries. Not bad, the fries weren't very crispy though.

We were gonna go to the FroYo place from the last time but they were closed so we went to an ice cream shop and I GOT SUPERMAN ICE CREAM.... SUPERMAN. It's banana, raspberry, and blue raspberry. It was really good. AND IT WAS SUPERMAN. Can't stress that enough.

We walked around and went through the stores and just milled around. We were soaked though. Brought a spare shirt and pants... forgot the spare hoodie and shoes. COLD.

My friend always teases me cause I get cold so easy at work. I could only imagine what he would've said about this.

Lastly, was some mining. They have a shop where you can get bags of certain types of objects like arrow heads/fossils/rocks and you sift through it in the water.

(Still cold. Thanks Mom for having a spare dry jacket in the car)

 

What a wonderful day it had turned out to be, even though the weather didn't pan out, it still made for a great time.

Cucumber Falls | Ohiopyle | July | 2016

It's 10:53 at night right now and I'm exhausted. Exam number two is down and after lots of studying, long work day yesterday, getting up at 5:35 today and then 6:30 tomorrow, I'm wearing down and it's only Wednesday. 

Oh dear.

This is from July that I never got around posting but I must post it first before I post the other, so here is a short and sweet recap on the trip.

As we all know, every good morning almost always starts with coffee. At least after getting  about 10 tubes of blood drawn from the doctors coffee does make it much better. So before we started our adventure we stopped at Barnes & Noble and grabbed a coffee for the road. Mocha Frapp? Yes please!

We went into this completely blindly. We had plans on zip-lining, failed to realize you need to make a reservation for it, thank you sir who works at the cafe, who formerly worked at Ohiopyle. We didn't know where anything was and it was pretty busy that day, so the zip-lining kinda didn't happen.

We walked around though and just got a feel for it all. I was pretty upset that everything wasn't going as planned.

It did lead to some pretty great views though...

I LOVED these books. man, if I could draw, my journals would be looking A LOT like this. Stunning.

Next we hit the trails! Well, the first one we came across. I knew this one had a waterfall, my mom loves waterfalls, therefore, this was a must.

 This was my kind of trail. It was absolutely stunning, not too buggy, it was a rocky, and a hike compared to our typical adventures, oh but it was worth it.

This turned out to be kind of funny. We were at a little gravel spot next to the river and this cutie was fluttering around and I managed to get him to hang out on my finger and snap some pictures and then Mom was suddenly saying 'Oh my gosh, look!'

There was actually a good dozen Swallowtails huddled in one spot on the ground, it was so cool. Buuuuut I kinda scared them off a bit trying to creep closer and get a picture. Oops.

And lastly, our trip ended with some of the best frozen yogurt ever made.

 

And sprinkles. Never forget the sprinkles.