After his first snowshoe trip up at Brainard Lake Recreation Area, my oldest son decided he wanted to start his own web-page to detail his trips. Afraid of the competition, I told him he could be a Guest Author here on our blog. What follows is his story, as dictated by him and typed by me. While minor grammatical corrections might have slipped in, I tried my best to write down exactly what he said, exactly as he said it (as one long stream of thought).

I went on a snowshoe trip with my daddy. It was very fun. I saw a broken tent, it was very cool. But before I could see it I had to walk over ice. It looked like it was just ground because it had snow over it. I was the leader because I was good at finding the trail-markers. They were fun but they were hard because some of them were different colors from the others. I saw one that was brown but not blue. We were following the blue ones not the brown ones. I got my snowshoes from my grammy and granpy. They bought them for me. They were nice enough that when I went last week they took me to a little park. This time we went to a forest. There was a snowman at this downhill part but someone had kicked him down which was not nice because I wanted to see him. So we went further but I got tired so we went back and then I got to snowshoe in deep snow. It was really fun but put a lot of pressure on my feet. But I had to be forceful but not too forceful or else I would fall and my daddy would have to come in the deep end to grab me and pick me up. I kept saying "eat the meatball" to help me remember to squish the pointy parts on the snowshoes into the snow so I wouldn't fall downhill. I still fell but it was kind of fun and then my daddy would pick me up.

I went to lunch at Subway and I had a Subway sandwich with ham, american cheese, bacon and extra mustard on my sandwich. I got doritos for my chips. I got chocolate milk to drink. It was very good. Daddy got a magazine for me off of the trash can. I thought it was in the trash can so I asked him why he got one out of the trash can. He said he got it off the top. He said it was for people to bring home. It had lots of things for kids to do.

I had a great time and feel very proud. We took some pictures and you can look at them too.

Quick note from dad: The ice referred to was a frozen lake. Hearing him repeat the mantra of "eat the meatball" was hysterical, but apparently only semi-effective. Picking up 45 pounds of dead weight numerous times was hard after awhile, but definitely worth the effort for the memories of the trip.