Years ago my brother-in-law and I had a Thanksgiving tradition. We used to spend Thanksgiving day exploring caves in the nearby hills of the Ozark Mountains. We would recruit a couple of friends to go with us. This tradition was started because neither one of us are the football watching type and we didn't feel like being in the house while the cooking was going on.
We would leave relatively early in the morning and go to whatever cave we had chosen for that year. Many of the caves in the Ozark Mountains can only be found by word of mouth. Most cavers in the area choose not to mark caves on maps. This is because many of the caves that are marked on maps around here are trashed by party goers. True cavers have respect for caves.
But I digress. These caving trips were before my nieces and nephews came along. My daughter was just a baby. There were not that many kids to keep an eye on. Now my brother-in-law has five beautiful kids with my sister. They range in age from 6 to 13 years old. We do not leave them to get underfoot while we go out caving. Now the tradition is to take the kids on a hike while the cooks cook.
The hikes are fun and we have been doing them for a few years now. There is a nice valley behind the houses and we usually find our way down there looking at bluffs and trees and nature in general. Traditions tend to change over the years. What kind of traditions do you have?
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