Beautiful Day Outdoors

I took Jake into the woods yesterday to scout a hike we'll be taking with the Cub Scouts a week from now. I know the area very, very well but needed to know if 6 and 7 year old legs were up to the hike in and out with activities thrown in along the way.

I thought we'd march in, march out, maybe enjoy some hot chocolate, and be on our way but Jake had other plans. I advised him to grab a piece of his Halloween candy since he still had so much left and he took it a step further and loaded up his Camelbak Mini Mule which already contained his survival kit and some Clif Bars. He got his bladder out of the freezer, filled it up with water, and asked me to load it into the pack. He also filled the small pocket with plenty of sugary "rations" from his bag of goodies.

Taking a cue from the new boss, I loaded up my pack with a poncho and liner, cookset, first aid kit, knife and saw, firestarting gear, and all the other necessary gear for a day out in the woods.

We dressed too warm for the weather and sweatshirts quickly went into the pack as soon as we hit the trailhead.

Despite the pictures, the woods were anything but abandoned. As a matter of fact, I was constantly having to restage the pictures of a special prototype Spen dropped off on Saturday (oops, did I say too much) to move out of the way or to get better light. Lots of landscape shots came out just the same--tons of leaf litter and lots of bare trunks.

We saw a couple of does running through the woods and they crossed our path maybe 30 yards down the trail not once but twice. At first I thought they'd been spooked by the hikers but cutting back across the trail like they did made me wonder if they weren't just playing some kind of game.

Jake ate plenty of his candy, we didn't need the hot chocolate, and we covered lots of ground and drank lots of water. We sat on a bench near the river and enjoyed the day--until Jake was ready to move again and then he was off before I was ready and I had to chase him down the path.

I think I needed the day out after being sick for the past few days. I'm glad I got to spend it with one of my good hiking buddies.

Thanks for reading,


B