Family Hike

The past couple of days have been scorching hot, but prior to that we had one or two days of pleasant and beautiful weather, the kind where you go outside and can't imagine living anywhere else. We made the most of it by mobilizing and partaking in our first family hike of the season. It sort of came out of nowhere, and it took a bit of legwork to put all the pieces in place, but we managed and had a great outing.

Several days before this it was raining like crazy, and there was some concern that the trails might be muddy, but we forged ahead anyway. For the record, the trails were muddy, but not intolerably so, and you can't let less than ideal conditions stop you. Otherwise you'll never get out the door.

Now I had planned on making supper that evening and had even started to prepare some of the dishes, but as soon as the idea of a hike and picnic came up, I immediately stuffed everything into the fridge and turned my attention to getting our picnic supper together. A had band practice that afternoon, so mom took her over to that and me and N went out and got picnic supplies, i.e., food. There were leftover meet dumplings that we had for supper the night before, so I fried them up and packed them into a to-go container. We gathered up the food and water, stuffed it into my backpack, and then went to meet the girls over at the trailhead.

The weather was beautiful. It was a warm day so by late afternoon it was cool and nice. Plus, the trail is wooded so it's usually cool. The hike was nice though I could feel how out of shape I was, exacerbated by the kids taking off and being miles ahead of us. It's striking how much faster they are up the hill, dare I say embarrassing. Mom and I like to take our time and chat about life. By the time we got to the top, the kids were resting on the summit, wondering if they were going to have to send out a search party to find us. Very funny...

We had a wonderful picnic, with plenty of bread, cheese, cold cuts, and fruit... and of course, meat dumplings. The one downside was that there was no breeze so the mosquitoes were out in full force, so while we feasted, we were being feasted upon. Sort of a bummer. We finished the meal with chocolate and began the descent to the bottom. It felt good to be out on the trail again and hope to do it as often as possible. We just have to make it happen, right?

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Until then, thanks for reading, and thanks to Kevin Armstrong for the pic.