A Surprise Date Night

Last Tuesday, we were scheduled to celebrate our friend's birthday at a comedy club. Unfortunately, she got a call the night before saying that the comedian had canceled, so the night out was not going to happen. Well, we got the news too late to cancel on our sitter, so we decided to take advantage of the night out and went out for a short date.

Over the summer, I heard a number of our youth talk about a nearby mill over the summer. We've lived in our home for eight years now and we had never been down to this area. I decided that this would be a great opportunity for Craig and I to check it out before we took the kids down to it. We swung by Sonic for a couple of tasty milkshakes and then over to the mill.

We had a great time exploring the area. There is a beautiful covered bridge and a wonderful creek. We chose to hike along the side of the creek (that didn't have the "official" pathway) down to the waterfall. Along the real path down to the waterfall, there a number of plaques with information about the area, the mill, the dam and the people of the area. It was a great place. We decided that it would be a fun spot to bring the kids to do some real creek play!!

While we were there, Craig was searching for some good skipping stones. He thought he found a good flat rock, but it wasn't quite a stone.



It was a padlock of some kind connected to a chain. Knowing that the mill was active in the 1830's, the stories started going through our minds of how old the lock was and what how it was used. A lover of unique antiques, Craig was very excited about his find and brought it home. Over the next couple of days, he took time to clean off the rust and dirt and try to find out more about his discovery. As he was washing it, a design on the lock began to emerge.

Here's what it looks like after a lot of cleaning and scrubbing.

What a very clean lock looks like. No, we didn't get our to look like this but it does help us know what we're looking at with our lock.

Thanks to quite a bit of elbow grease and the internet, he found out that he had found a Masonic padlock from between 1874-1899. Craig's grandfather was a mason, so the lock had a special connection. He was so thrilled to find out that he hadn't just found a piece of trash that someone had thrown in the water - well, I guess it was just a piece of trash, but a really old piece of trash!!