When our family moved into a new home in Lincoln County almost two years ago, we wanted to take a break from all the hard work of getting our house in order. We had 10 grandkids at that time (we now have 11) and we love doing things with them in the Great Outdoors. Naturally, we saw signs for Cuivre River State Park when we drove down Hwy. 47 on our many trips into Troy to shop at Wal-Mart. When we finally decided to take that much-needed break, my husband (Papa) and I (I’m Nana, by the way) got everyone together and drove to Cuivre River State Park. Our first

stop was the Visitor Center so we could get information about trails. We browsed in the Center and saw lots of arrowheads – something I have always wanted to find during our many hikes. I asked the Park Ranger if the arrowheads were very plentiful. He told me that people do find them on occasion. That gave me encouragement to keep on looking down!

With about 10 of us pouring over maps, it took us awhile to come to an agreement, but we finally decided on an easy trail

since we had all the grandkids – including two babies. We easily found the trailhead for Turkey Hollow Trail. The grandkids who could walk on their own were off and running as soon as the van engines were shut off. I yelled for everyone to come back so we could get a group photo first. A picnic table was very conveniently placed, so I set my camera on a timer and then ran over to get in the picture so we could have the entire group together – all 17 of us! (The only one missing from our family was our son-in-law, who was serving our country in Iraq.)

We enjoyed watching the kids stop to check out paw prints, colorful leaves, and various sized sticks – good for all sorts of things! After our little hike, we spread out a couple of blankets and enjoyed a picnic lunch. We thanked God for our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches – they always taste great when you’re sitting on a blanket surrounded by chirping birds and kids…just being kids.

After lunch, the kids poked and prodded Papa and got him moving again (lying on a blanket in the sunshine, with a full belly, makes one drowsy after all). We all drove up to Lake Lincoln and found a deserted beach – the perfect spot for continuing the search for cougar paw prints! Our granddaughters found some perfectly formed prints – we documented the findings with photos AND video! They used an information card from the Visitor Center to verify

that these were indeed cougar prints. We spent about an hour on the beach with the older kids, while the babies napped in the vans. There were so many fun things to do – look for the afore-mentioned cougar prints; dig in the sand with sticks; make bird tracks in the sand; throw rocks in the water…it was very hard to drag ourselves away from this beautiful spot in God’s creation.

So…that was the first of many trips to Cuivre River State Park. We’ve been on at least five of the trails (with and without grandkids) and decided that Frenchman’s Bluff is our very favorite…but that’s another story.

And I still haven't found my arrowhead!