No pictures today but thanks to Maria and her parents (our neighbors) I got to play for hours in a local county park today! Frank Liske Park is about six miles southwest of Concord and has a variety of things to do: a pond for fishing and paddleboats, soccer fields, a long nature trail, and several playgrounds. Thanks Antoni and Jessie!
-Joseph
We went about 40 miles south of Concord today to go find some pumpkins and a corn maze. Unfortunately, I can’t recommend it so I won’t give you directions — t was not worth the drive. 
Instead let me share with you a lesson I recently learned.
Daddy! Daddy! [finger pointing to socket
– Joseph
No hiking this weekend — instead Mommy and Daddy spent Saturday cleaning the house and cooking. We also pulled out all of the Halloween stuff! We will finish decorating the house this afternoon but first we went for a nice walk on the greenway (just our usual short loop). But I’m very excited about putting up Halloween decorations. We have a skeleton that is AWESOME!
–Joseph
![[Picture of Joseph unpacking Halloween decorations]](http://joseph.ronsass.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/DSC_0008.jpg "Decorating with Joseph")
What's this?!?
Saturday I went to Stone Mountain State Park, just north of Elkin, NC and south of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Mom, Dad, and I had a picnic lunch and then did two hikes. We started on the upper Stone Mountain loop trail head. We hiked about 3 miles up to the top of Stone Mountain and back. Then we drove to the lower S.M. trail head and hiked towards the Hutchinson Homestead. We weren’t quite sure we were going the right way so we ended up doubling back a couple of times and never actually made it. Definitely a cool destination and relatively close to Concord, so I’m sure we’ll be going back.
–Joseph
![[Jennie (almost) on top of Stone Mountain]](http://joseph.ronsass.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/dsc_0611.jpg "jennie_stone_mtn")
Mommy
This summer I was lucky because my dad had to go to Greece for work. He took me and mommy and we had a great vacation! Among the many things I saw, the coolest was the acropolis in Athens.
partheon
This is me on top of the acropolis.
on top of the acropolis
Here’s another view of on old building on top of the acropolis.
another temple on acropolis
They even have ruins in the subway station!
And one last touristy thing to show you. This is the changing of the guards. (This is also where lots of people protest — which was a little scary for us because it almost prevented us from catching our flight home.)
–Joseph
I couldn’t help myself … I had to run out into the warm summer rain!
It's raining!
-J
Of the two main hikes, the Pinnacle Trail is more scenic. It is relatively short (1.7 miles up and 1.7 miles back) but a good aerobic exercise (for my dad). The view from King’s Pinnacle is very nice.
Top of King's Pinnacle
The other trail from the visitor center (Crowder’s Trail) is basically an old road and not very interesting. If headed to the radio towers (for rock climbing) I would park at the Linwood Access and take the backside trail.
-J
Here’s a few pics from a 2007 outing. We went to South Mountain State Park when I was roughly two years old. Below are a couple of pictures of me, mommy, Elwood, and dad.
J.
collage -- yay
The town of Blowing Rock, North Carolina is just south of Boone. Right from downtown, there is a nice hike that descends down a gorge. There are couple of little waterfalls along the way and many people walk down to the big falls (named Glen Burney Falls). Round trip is about 2.5 miles. There is another falls (Glen Marie Falls) farther down as well. But this was just a little hike for us (I’m only 6 months old!) and we just enjoyed being outside on this trip.
On the trail
-Joseph
I went for my first stroll the day I left the hospital! Here we are at Kill Creek Park in Johnson County, Kansas.
completing the circuit