With school out, it might be time to plan a summertime family get-away. If the outdoor adventuresome type, give thought to a horseback trail ride offered in North Dakota’s Little Missouri State Park. It is a fun and beautiful option. More than 10,000 years ago Glacial drainage basins flowed north-easterly over the plains carving through the flat terrain toward what is now Lake Sakakawea. The spectacular landscape it created can be seen by horseback now near Killdeer, ND.

Two of our adult children still recall the beauty of the park, the thrill of their first horseback ride as well as watching their father’s horse take off like Secretariat on the final stretch to the finish immediately after we climbed out of the valley and onto flat prairie. With one hand on the saddle horn and the other pulling hard on reins, I hollered and begged the steed to “whoa!” before I might be ejected to return home by ambulance. Perhaps upbringing with a generous dose of The Lone Ranger and My Friend Flicka were at work keeping me atop the ornery mustang.

A fly-fishing excursion to Manitoba years ago brought more special time together. My son, David, brother-in-law and I had fished Hidden Lake north of Russell, MB, previously and enjoyed good luck finding large rainbow trout there. I helped David get out on the lake in his one-person kick-boat, then prepared to join him. Suddenly David had a nice fish on the line. He played the fish long enough to enable me to paddle out for a photo op as the fish was netted.

“Dad, where’s my rod?” he asked once releasing the trout. In all the excitement, he’d lost track of the borrowed rod and reel now resting somewhere at the bottom. After dragging my rod tip back and forth across the bottom for 40 minutes in hope of snagging the lost rig, I gave up. The call to my friend to report losing his expensive fishing outfit wouldn’t be easy. The last day of fishing, we returned to Hidden Lake for one more try. With a spare rod, David floated north on the lake this time while my brother-in-law and I drifted south. When we radioed that fish were biting down south, David kicked our way, trolling with his fly dragging the lake bottom. “Fish on!” he bellowed as he drew near.

The bend in his rod suggested something special would soon be reeled in. But, a surprise came when the catch turned out to be the rod lost three days earlier. Eighteen months later, a letter addressed to “Sommers Recovery and Salvage” arrived. It was from a fellow with whom I’d fished before, saying he had lost a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses in a Manitoba lake and wanted help retrieving them.

A summer visit to see friends in London years ago was also memorable. We left their flat headed to a tube (subway) station not far away. Though there seemed no urgency to get there, upon hitting the pavement outside, we looked like short-track ice skaters after the bang of a starter’s pistol. David led the charge with his sister closely behind, her shoes pounding pavement faster than Buddy Rich on a snare drum. Rita strode bent over, drafting third in line like Mario Andretti would behind the lead car at the NASCAR championship. I lagged a distant fourth, winded and scanning storefronts hoping to spot a portable oxygen cannister somewhere.

Worried about being chopped in half as train doors closed, an Apollo Ohno-inspired sprint generated sufficient pace to catch up. However, corduroy slacks and the coefficient of friction worked in tandem. My inner thighs heated dangerously close to a temperature sufficient to ignite any accidental release of bangers and mash gases that could illuminate the streets of London like a super nova before I was launched into orbit.

Come to think of it, you go ahead and enjoy an equine excursion, angling adventure or British Tube tour. A family get-away for a back-yard picnic with grandkids is just the ticket for this old grandpa.