Going around in circles
Atop the construction debris! Queens of the hill!
Recently, my kids and I went out to brave the undeveloped land near our house. We grabbed waterbottles, put on reasonably sensible shoes, and headed off.
It was great! We discovered the lots where the construction crew dumps their debris (presumably to clean up later, as these lots will be developed someday, deer paths, and lots of strange plants. And despite starting to get tired, the little ones wanted to follow a set of car tracks that circled around the property.
Okay, sure. So off we went. Except when we were behind the properties the path petered out, and there we were in the middle of a cactus filled field, no longer in among the surveyed lots and such. We were, as the kids said, "in the wild." (Wild, of course being a relative term.)
Behind our neighborhood
The path was curving and we figured that if we followed it, we'd end up behind their friend's house who lives at the edge of the development. We did…and never saw our neighborhood just fields and fields and then, after a bit, in the distance a street–that I recognized as in our old neighborhood, and probably a mile from where we now live.
Ack! Out comes the iPhone and the GPS map. Yup. We were a looooong way from any street (including the one I could see as it was behind barbed wire and then people's backyards).
So we cut across. Plowing through the waisthigh grasses, avoiding cactus (except when Catherine squatted to see a flower and got some prickles in her rear….but shhhhh. I'm not supposed to talk about that!). And that little red dot kept moving closer and closer until, finally, we could see familiar construction!
Yay! We headed home and reported to DH about our adventure, and they'd had such fun that they wanted another.
So that weekend we headed to Lake Georgetown and walked about 1/2 the trail and then returned, this time with the whole family. Also great fun. DH took his walking stick, which he told the kids was the wizard's staff and we were trying to find the wizard's cavern, which resulted in lots of squealing and searching and debating about whether his staff was magical or if the large sticks they found were the real wizard staffs.
Lake Georgetown...later, we got off the paved path
After hiking dry run number two we decided proper shoes were in order, and we all bought hiking shoes from REI. This weekend, we're going to McKinney falls. It's a 4.5 mile hiking trail around the park, and we're packing a lunch. Wish us luck! I'm excited as I've missed doing stuff like this as we've been in that netherzone of too old for a stroller, but too young to go very far. I think we may have crossed that line! Now if the kids would just turn 12 so I can take them scuba diving….
What's your favorite thing to do as a family?
