Hiking

I hate to call this our new thing, for fear of it dropping by the wayside just because I’ve claimed it, but: We love hiking! For the past two weeks we’ve gone on a family hike twice a week and it has been wonderful. The weather has been perfect in the mornings for our family outings. And Anna is a great hiking companion. We enjoy taking in the scenes through her eyes. One walk we took through Hardberger park led us through some shaded woods where could not even count all the lizards we saw and heard. It was a real treat. Every few steps there was another one. We also found some intricate spider webs and one brave spider.

Our hike in Eisenhower Park took us to a tower with a nice view. They are always fun to reach and climb to “finish” our hike.

Last week we tackled a surprisingly steep hike at the Friedrich Wilderness Park but our ankles are stronger and Anna thought the rocks were fun to climb on. For part of the hike, half of the trail was dirt and half the trail was large stone. Anna would sing “I’ll take the high road and you take the low road” over and over again as she hopped from stone to stone.

After that particularly strenuous hike Anna ate her share of the large pizza we got from the nearby mall. Anna talked about going back for pizza for a few days afterwards. We thought the pizza was pretty good too but it might be due in part to the meal being a well-earned one.

I’m grateful for the public recreation areas around our home and for the lovely shady paths we’ve found.

Lessons learned:

• Paved paths are less comfortable for us to walk on than the natural ones and usually mean less fun things to point out for our little girl. Anna’s enjoyment of one hike went from completely bored and done to through the roof happy when we started racing, seeing who could step on the big rocks first.
• Views are nice but landmarks are the best destinations. Towers, windmills, and playgrounds rejuvenate my little hiker and give her some more energy to keep on going.
• Snacks are essential. Sunbelt granola bars are Jacob’s favorite.