After being a good boy in the car (Are we there yet?) for a full day’s ride from Medford, Oregon to Reno, NV, last December, Austin was rewarded with a morning of sledding! We all had great fun! He must have had 15 to 20 rides down the little incline of cleared landscape – as in – it had fewer rocks than the rest of the land! Lots of fun in the crispy, fresh air! I posted a few runs on youtube:
…and yet another run… I have lots of short clips but they all stop about half way down the hill because I stop the camera so I can catch him. This one runs a little further! Threeeeeee
…and then a closer look at the nearby rocky bits that we maneuvered around for a toboggan run!
Get Outside!! From the National Wildlife Federation website: Did you know that by the time most children go to kindergarten, they have spent more than 5,000 hours in front of a TV – and that is enough time to earn a college degree?
A park naturalist at the El Dorado Nature Center will be guiding a post-holiday trail walk on December 26 from 10 am until noon. The cost is $3/person and you must register in advance. Call 562-570-1745. Walk off some of those Christmas Dinner calories! 🙂
The Center is across the street from the El Dorado Regional Park, which has picnic areas, archery range, stocked lakes, pedal boats, physical fitness course, radio controlled model sailboat and model airplane areas, Caboose Corners train ride and other activities.
Junior Olympic Archery Development (JOAD) holds free archery instruction with their equipment or your own. There is a one hour safety/orientation class held regularly. For more information, to confirm class schedule or to schedule groups, call Aletha Donathan, Head Archery Instructor at (562) 688-9666.
A great website for searching on Nevada trails is nvtrailmaps.com for running, hiking, biking, mountain biking, cycling, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling and even more activities. You can search by location (county), activity, length of trail and elevation. Easy way to explore possibilities for spending some Green Hour Time with the kids and grandkids. 🙂
Giant Corn Mazes are getting more and more popular as an October or Halloween family activity. Grandson Austin and the rest of the family went to the pumpkin patch and giant corn maze this weekend. I did some more research and came up with some fun Giant Corn Maze websites. So here they are below!
I love AUTUMN! I love the swirl of color of reds, golds, yellows and greens! I remember raking the leaves into a pile and then jumping into them! It’s a great time to do some family hiking in National Forests or National Parks or reserves or city parks or along the river or …..! The mixes of color are different at every curve in the path.
I found some really fun sites of additional information for you – For my niece Michele here is The Chemistry of Autumn Colors. Google images of fall colors are totally beautiful! The Wikipedia cornucopia of knowledge is bountiful. Here are color cams of colorful foliage. This New England Travel site has several webcams to cyber-watch the New England fall colors. Here is the Mono County, CA fall foliage guide. The Eastern US fall color guide is full of info, too! Any arboretum or park will be gorgeous, but here is a beautiful site from Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Iowa fall colors are described in USA Today. Mount Rushmore is also awesome! The Smokie Mountains are also changing color. In Alaska, Denali National Park is awesome in autumn, according to Margaret Bauman. The Western Michigan Tourist Association offers 26 different scenic driving tours for enjoying the autumn colors. Also a very decent website on autumn color is Total Escape on California off the beaten path.
Here is a science project for kids on Autumn Leaves.
Lots of parks and reserves are listed at the Orange County website. The Orange County Register has a link with outdoor actities and events that has great ideas for family fun! Enjoy!
The back of my Autumn Nature Conservancy magazine had a little ad on the back for Nature Rocks: Let’s Go Explore. It is a fun website to click through – complete with children’s voices and ducks! Here is a Staycation Guide (takes a while to load – it is a pdf file) on things to do as a family close to home. A fun feature to play with is Find Nature. Great photos can be seen here. Enjoy!
All kinds of ideas are available on the net for games and activities to play in your backyard with your kids or grandkids. Grandparents.com is again a great source of ideas. Nabiscoworld.com has a cute interactive website of ideas. How Stuff Works has several learning experiences outlined. FamilyFun.Go.com has Fun in the Sun activities identified. Suite101.com has a lot of yard games listed as well as several associated links. Have fun!
Galena Fest 2009 is a new event in Reno for cycling enthusiasts! Competitive mountain biking in the hills above South Reno at the Galena Creek Regional Park.
The race takes place Sept. 27, 2009, from 7 a.m.-2 p.m. with several events for mountain bikers of every age and skill level.
Activities include
The Bloody Rose Mountain Bike Climb to Relay Peak
The Thorn Mountain Bike Climb to The Wall at Sky Tavern
Kids’ Mountain Bike Race through Galena Creek Regional Park and
Big Fish Contest at Marilyn Pond
The event will raise funds to keep Galena Creek Regional Park accessible and safe and re-establish outdoor programs at the Park.
Posted by mygrandmasue 
MyGrandmaSue 