Not coffee.
Drove up late Friday. Slept in Saturday (s recurring theme) and eventually headed down to Grand Caverns, which was pretty cool. Z. was a good walker for the first half or so. She was a big fan of the (2) bats we saw, and was duly impressed by some of the local grandeur. M. will have pics up at some point in the near future.
Sunday was punctuated by a trip to a local pool. Not being of the water sort, I worked on The Good War, which is turning out to be pretty fascinating. Z. and all spent a couple hours in the pool, so mission accomplished there.
Monday, M.'s parents made their way back. Z., M., her brother, and their grandmother and I headed down to the Rockingham County Fair. Which was... an experience. Farm equipment! Cattle shows! Actual livestock!
First up was the petting zoo, run by the local 4-H Club. The box of bunnies was remarkably cute, and watching a girl corral baby ducklings was charming. But the llama was the real winner pretty much across the board.
Next we wandered through the livestock area. Remarkably large cows were seen; Z. got to see a sheep being shorn.
Crowds started picking up as the afternoon turned to evening. We got Z. one of the 'ride all the rides you want' bracelets, and bought a hadnful of tickets for us adults to take turns going with her. M. and her brother split most of the duties there, especially on the tall rides and the fast spinney ones. I did join Z. on the "Dragon Wagon," an amusingly small roller coaster (maybe 30 feet long, no more than 10 feet high.) (It's one of these .) I wasn't sure I would fit in the car, but I managed to cram my legs in. When the bar came down, though, it turns out I really, really didn't fit, as it was squishing into my torso, and my feet and legs were locked in place. Whoops! We spun around. Daughter was amused by me getting squished. Fun.
Z. was all over the rides, actually. Right up until the end, when she encountered... the Octopus. (It's one of these.) The dutiful carnies noticed that she wasn't enjoying herself after that first loop, though, so it wasn't overly traumatic. And, being a brave little trooper, she said she would try it again when she was older. So, good up on that.
Oh, no.
I tried to keep my big-city ways from getting me in trouble, but man, it's a different world.
Some ring-toss game with a classy name choice.
Sigh.
Tuesday was packing, including M.'s grandmother making sure there was zero space leftover in the car by giving us many, many things.