Derek Hildreth’s Blog

Labor Day Weekend at the Cabin

From Labor Day at …

There was one word that I heard more often than any other this trip to the cabin: “motorbiking”. And that’s exactly what we did. Shortly after arriving at the cabin around 7:30PM on the 1st, Heather and I handed off Qeirstyn to the Grandma’s and took the opportunity to quickly go out on Devon’s new motorbike to give Heather a crash course in how to ride a bike. She did awesome! And if you consider that the bike she was riding was much to big and heavy for her size, she did even better. For the first few minutes, I had ran beside her in order to make sure she was doing okay, and then to my surprise she had told me to stay put! She had taken off on her own down the main road and shifted into third gear before slowing back down again to a perfect stop. It got to be pretty dark after an hour of riding, so we headed back to the cabin where we ended up playing an exciting game of “kick the can”. It was so dark, that we were able to lay down and hide out in the middle of the yard. The ‘taggers’ would step on your hand and never even see you. Heather had a close encounter with a mouse in her hiding spot when it scurried right in front of her face while she was lying down!
The next morning, we went out for yet another motorbike ride that took up most of the day. This is where the picture taking started. We rode in groups with just about one motorbike or four-wheeler per person. Along the way, we took a random stop and discovered these huge crickets! Heather picked one right up, but I was a little more hesitant. We ended up finding the perfect picnic spot and settled down for a couple of hours to let our bodies rest from the vibrations of the motors. Heather and I had switched out our four-wheeler for the motorbike that Cody and his fiance, Sarah, drove up on, and started to head out. Unfortunately, we got a flat tire and rode back home in the truck with the motorbike loaded in the back. After settling down, we got some pretty cute pictures of Qeirstyn in the tire swing out in front of the cabin. I remember swinging in that as a kid, and it has been around for a long time so it was pretty special to see her in it. Once we had thought that our weary bones we rested up enough, Heather and I went out for another bike riding lesson. Again, to my surprise, she had insisted on driving the bike all the way down the cabin road, through the main road, and to the riding spot by herself. I followed on the three wheeler. When we got there, it got dark a lot faster than we had anticipated, so we headed back to the cabin. Heather not only rode the bike there, she drove it all the way back in the dark! She did great.
On September 3rd, Heather and I went out for yet another quick motorbike ride to get some pictures and video of her riding around. She did excellent that time too. She’s learning very quickly and she’ll be a great rider once we can find her a bike that fits a little better. So, that was the end of the bike riding of this labor day weekend and the pictures as well! We would’ve taken more pictures, but the camera battery died out.