Saturday we traveled to Ringwood State Park for the Mountain Madness trail run. It was very cold but the 3Js were well prepared. The park is beautiful - nice lake, beach, picnic area, hiking trails, playground and nearby Botanical Gardens.
They are all signed in and ready to go. The sign-in area reminded me a lot of the clubhouse in Jim and Sheryl's Windmill Club.
I was nice and warm all bundled up in my warm suit.
Near the start-finish line.
Ready - set - go!
The winner of the race (7.7 miles) came in around 1 hour 33 minutes. Shortly after that I positioned myself to watch the other runners approach the finish line. About 30 minutes later I saw 3 runners on the trail in the woods. I said to myself, that can't be my guys, those guys don't have blue hats on. (Their hats were in their pockets.) Wait a minute - it was my guys! As they approached me I told them they were in 2nd, 3rd and 4th and they said, "No way." Well, sure enough, they were! Turns out many, many runners didn't pay enough attention to the trail markers and they went the wrong way for many miles. Jason, Jim and John finished the race in 2 hours 7 minutes and 48, 49, and 50 seconds!
Unfortunately, my camera malfunctioned, permanently it turns out, when I wanted to take pics of them finishing. It's been breaking down all summer and now it seems to be kaput. It gave us thousands of excellent pictures the past 5.5 years!
Yesterday we went to Hawk Mountain (in Pennsylvania, not far from Cabela's) to hike and see the hawk migration. The hiking was spectacular but there were no hawks for some strange reason. Maybe they went a different way because it was so unseasonably warm. We took these excellent pictures with our cell phones!
After lunch we drove about 20 miles to the Yuengling Brewery in Pottsville, PA. The tour was fascinating.
At the end you get to have two cups (maybe 7 oz.) of your choice of beers or birch beer. John and Jason enjoyed an ale and a dark beer and I enjoyed the birch beer. 
