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Crazy Stuff - Driving Over a Mountain

Have you ever really gone on an adventure?  I can honestly say that we have gone on some wild and crazy adventures.  One of those was with the old missionary - Harold Reiner.  He lived and worked in Brazil for more than 50 years.  During his last years of service he lived about three hours away from us in a town called Remanso.  He would come to as many retreats as he could each year.  He loved the island camp and had been very involved in its beginning.

Whenever he was at camp he would often tell long tales - some were old and some were new but most were true.  He talked a lot about taking people to see the cave drawings in a park about three hours from his house.  He asked the boys if they wouldn't like to go one day.  Finally the day arrived and Uncle Byron decided to take Uncle Harold up on the request.

Uncle Harold said we would go to the park to see the cave drawings and make a trip through another park that was nearby.  Mostly what they told me to do was bring lots of snacks and hammocks in case we needed them to sleep somewhere.  Ah, and lots of water and stuff to drink.  The trip was planned during our regular school days. So I decided to turn it into a real field trip and assigned the boys with some tasks.  They had to map out our route and investigate some about the places we would see.

Off we went in Uncle Harold's four wheel drive truck...


Our first place to see was to be the Serra das Confusões National Park.  It is rather famous for its unusual mountains that look like piles of rounded rock.  It was also famous as a hideout over the years for bandits and political rebels.  Uncle Harold said we would be crossing the whole park in one trip.  He didn't really say that part of the route went over the top of the mountain ridge and that the road was sort of - hard to follow.


Can you see a road in this photo?  When we started going up the mountain sometimes it was up alright - straight up.  And when we finally started down the other side, it was exactly that sometimes - straight down.  No asphalt, no painted yellow lines, and no signs.  Once Uncle Harold was a little unsure about with little path to take.  About then he saw a man on a motorcycle with a passenger mind up zipping up the trail.  The man reluctantly stopped, as he didn't want to lose his speed, to answer Uncle Harold's questions.


We did see some incredible things including a place where you could go down through a hole in the rock to a cave underneath that opened into a whole other place with water trickling and lots of green plants right in the middle of all the dry, dead, sandy rocks.

It was a long trip over that mountain as we had to drive very slowly and cautiously.  As we finally got to the bottom of the mountain it started raining.  I was sure glad to hadn't rained while we were up on the top.  I think we would have washed right down like on a giant water slide.  Since it was raining, Uncle Harold gave up his idea to tie our hammocks under the trees to sleep somewhere and we pushed on to leave the park on the opposite side from whence we had entered.  There we found a small inn that served the best food I had ever eaten - or maybe I was just glad to be off that crazy mountain!

I have a long post with information about every day of our trip on the boys' homeschool blog.  Here's the link...

https://wordpress.com/post/theathaschoolforboys.wordpress.com/445657

I hope you boys are all done with your school work for the year.  Greyson is winding down things tomorrow since William flies in next week.  After William and Kerri leave, he'll get right back to work!

Take care - Aunt Michele

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  1. Hey I got it just had to figure out where to hit to open it all up.

    ReplyDelete

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