My Big Hike

His mom was heading out to a concert the other night and we had a couple of hours to go before bedtime. Zane really needed to burn off excess energy so I suggested we go on a hike. When he was a baby I was looking forward to him walking just so we could do this. And then when he first started walking I imagined how nice it would be when he got older and could walk more than a few feet without stopping to play with rocks/mailboxes/sticks. Now he’s capable of walking longer distances, but it’s still nearly impossible to go more than a hundred feet without stopping to do something.

Which is fine, we didn’t have a goal. Still, he does stop to fiddle with sticks and rocks a lot! Eventually we made it the couple of blocks to the beaver dam where we explored the shoreline and found two frogs, a lizard, an old crawdad carcass and a bunch of footprints. After a half hour of this I suggested we walk back home but he insisted on continuing “my big hike!” So up the hill we went. Lots of Red Efts this time of year and he stopped to look at each one as if it was the first he’d ever seen. We also found a bunch of sprouting acorns along with a few bugs and a lot of sticks. Eventually we made it to about a mile up the hill where the late hour and distant rumble of thunder sent us homeward. We ran for a bit, but he soon got a side ache. I ended up giving him a piggy back ride the remainder of the way while the two of us sang songs, some made up and some barely remembered classics.