Family Fun Day

It was time for the annual Family Day at Rideau Carleton Raceway. We picked up the 4 year old grandson and set out for a day of fun. First stop, of course, was to do a little geocaching along the way.

We stopped at the Veterans Park along Highway 416 and were informed, "I’ve been here before!" I just assumed it was because his great grandfather was a veteran and the family had taken GGPa for a ride and stopped there. But no, it sounded more like Mommy had taken him to look for treasure at this location already. So I told him to lead the way. He said they never found it, but asked me for my GPS. He studied it for a moment. "Okay guys. Look. See, this is where we are," he said, poking his finger at the GPS screen, "And the treasure is way over here." Then he started walking, with us following up behind. Four year olds are pretty smart these days!

It was Grandpa that spotted the cache in the end though. It had several beaded bracelets inside, and just a few other trinkets. Remembering that last time we took this child geocaching, he chose a little hairclip for his Mommy, I thought he’d pick her out a nice bracelet this time. No way! There was a little plastic blue and yellow knife in there, and he went straight for that. And that thing amused him the rest of the day.

The Family Fun Day is really a fund raiser for CHEO, and totally geared for kids. There was a man singing kiddy songs, and lots of rhythm band instruments for the kids to use. There were stations set up for coloring, beading, and facepainting. There were pony rides and bikes built into a horse and sulky set up. There were live reptiles and tarantellas and places to throw balls at a hoop or use chalk on the pavement. There was even an area where the kids were given a kit to build their own birdhouse. All the while, there were horses doing practice runs around the track. There weren’t as many demonstrations as the previous year, and there didn’t seem to be as big a crowd either. I just hope they made enough for CHEO to continue holding this event for a few more years yet, as, by the time this grandson grows out of it, the new one will be old enough to go.

After a bit of food, purchased from a chip wagon at the site, we headed for home. We made one final stop to do a bit more geocaching. The grandson looked at the entrance to the path, and asked, "Are we going into the deep, dark woods?" I said, "We are, but remember, we have the GPS so we won’t get lost." That met with approval. So did the many puddles along the path. There has been a lot of rain this summer. It was hard to stay out of the mud, and each one of us nearly slipped at one point or another. But that was only after we decided there were entirely too many hungry bugs in the woods that day, and perhaps we were in too much of a hurry to get back out of there. We’ll have to return for the cache some other time of year.