We are lucky to have a final post from my guest blogger Joanne Smith.  I received this one in November and it inspired me to take a wonderful hike with my crew.  Everyone had a great time.  I’m grateful to Joanne for all her contributions.  I need a little time to try and promote my book, and her posts have helped me keep the blog going.  I plan to contact local hotels next week and will hopefully be back to blogging very soon.  I sure have alot I want to say!  My New Year’s resolution …take lots more pictures.  I notice that my latest blog entries have been very text heavy.  Hopefully I will soon be contributing to Delicious Baby’s photo Fridays.

Without further ado…

A Road Less Traveled

by Joanne Smith

As a child my parents used to load my brother and me in the car to get away from the house for a few hours.  The reason’s varied from my mom working a lot of overtime and she wanted some time with just the four of us where she could tell us what was happening in her world and find out what was going on in ours.  Or perhaps the phone just wouldn’t stop ringing and getting out of the house meant we didn’t have to answer it, and since there were no voicemail or answering machines back in the day, we never knew who called either. 

The places we went were simple enough and generally we set out to go nowhere in particular, just get there without driving on a major freeway.  That’s right, find a lesser known street or state highway and head out of the city.  Pack a picnic, visit a small town museum or park.  Or perhaps a seasonal activity like in the winter we’d often find some snow and sled or have an impromptu snowball fight.  Summer might find us in a swimming hole on our favorite creek, river or lake.  

The point is to put away the electronics, leave the cell phone turned off, don’t bring the portable DVD player or the handheld video games, and talk to each other.  Do you remember playing the license plate game or I Spy?  These same simple games kids today will play.  Just like we did, they are apt to tell you they aren’t having any fun.  So break out a real paper map, leave the GPS at home too, and find the road less traveled in your neck of the woods.