Alston's First Hike

 

I'm only mildly outdoorsy, but somehow I was gifted these two little girls who are wannabe woodland fairies. If it's above freezing (and sometimes when it's not), Harper and Willa want to be outside. So, last year, we started hiking some of the local trails. We do all these cool things while we travel, but we've had to become more intentional about enjoying the touristy things right here in our backyard like the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Roanoke River Greenway, and the Appalachian Trail. That combined with being committed to giving our kids plenty of unplugged time equals more family outside time. 

And so now, Sam likes preaching the gospel of the trail. A few weeks ago, we hiked with the Quesenberry family. This week's victim, Corrie and Alston!

 

It was only in the 40s this weekend, but it was super (deceivingly) sunny and we had NOTHING PLANNED for Saturday, so a family hike sounded like a great fit (to Sam and the girls. I like my outdoors above 50 degrees. 😊). 

Corrie decided to brave it with two-year-old Alston, and Sam was so proud. We started off by taking a look at one of the dams where Sam works, so we hiked down to the river from the parkway and let the kiddos skip stones  and climb along the river rocks. 

 

 

 

 

We climbed all the stairs back up to the lookout, and hopped back in the car to head out to Explore Park. They have an assortment of beginner trails, and we randomly chose the River Walk to set out on an easy 2 miles. 

 

 

The end of the trail had a little picnic area and a great view of the river, so we let the kiddos run around and give us grey hair by playing near the river. 😳

 

 

Since McAfee's Knob, Cascades, and Roaring Run, Harper looked at the river and said, "But, where's the waterfall!?"  Ha. She's gotten a little spoiled on the trail end payoff. 

But, at the end of the day, we go home with tired, hungry, sometimes cold little girls. But, they're also happy and fulfilled. So, off to pick to the next trail...

Cascades

After having so much fun on our hike to McAfee's Knob last weekend (see what happened there?  a few days go by and suddenly hiking 9 miles with two not-able-to-walk-9-miles children and a dog seemed like a good time.  ha!), we decided to hike somewhere again this weekend.

My sweet little Squiddly Diddly spent the night with us last night after Harper's softball game (Go, Grizzlies!  Big win last night, and Harper went 3-4 with 3 RBIs), so after the girls got up and ate breakfast, I gave them some options on what we could do for the day. 

A)  Go to Dad's softball game
B)  Go to a park and play
C)  Go for a hike

And then there was a lot of jumping up and down and chanting of "hike! hike! hike!"  Of course, when I gave all those options, it was a beautiful, sunny 65 degree morning.  And it was the entire one hour drive to the Cascades until we pulled into Giles County.  And then it started raining... I asked the girls if they would still be up for hiking, and since they were still enthusiastic, I paid our $3 parking fee, grabbed the backpack and headed up the trail. 

 

 

The girls did SO WELL on the hike up the hill!  There's a sign at the halfway point (one mile in) that Willa was oh-so-thrilled to have made it to.  There were a few times that Syd said, "Can we quit now?" ha! but, she kept on powering through.  I did carry WK for the last half mile or so, but the wide path and fun things to look at made the two mile hike up fairly enjoyable. 

The girls just could not believe it when we got to the falls.  I think they were even more impressed since on the way up, I may have convinced them this was it.  Bahahahaha.  I'm horrible.

Harper described it best when she said, "Whoa, that looks super powerful."  Unfortunately, because of the change in the weather, the area around the waterfall were extra misty and cool, so we were only there for around 15 minutes. 

 

 

On the way up, I didn't let the girls venture too far down the side trails (preserving energy!), but I told them we could go down as many as they'd like and take as much time as they'd like on the way back down.  And those little sweet peas took advantage of that offer.  I thought all the rain seeping through the canopy of the trees would make them cold and wanting to get back to the car, but they thought it'd be more fun to explore the creek and sing on top of rocks. 

 

 

After all that effort, these girlies deserved some ice cream, so we stopped at the Cascade Café for a fun treat.  After the ice cream, we hopped in the car to head back to Salem to try to catch one of Sam's game. Syd was asleep within three minutes of "quiet time", while my girls held out for about thirty minutes, but then finally crashed.  Sydney has been so good for me, and my girls have had so much fun with their cousin, so we asked Mimi if she could stay an extra night.  We'll return her to her family tomorrow morning at FCC since they'll be joining us to watch Harper sing at the Kids Life takeover, but only if we have to!

McAfee's Knob

So, my kids are going to look back on their childhood and either love or hate that in the Spring of 2016, their mother read the book Last Child in the Woods.  Actually, we may not even need to fast forward, because I'm pretty sure they both loved and hated it today.  ha!

 

Harper had a softball game at 9:00 in the morning (which they won.  Go, Grizzlies!), and afterward we stayed and played on the playground next to the fields.  It was so pretty, that we decided, hey, maybe we should spend the day outside.  And that we did. 

I suggested going to Cascades, but Sam didn't really feel like getting in the car and driving an hour, so we packed up some snacks and some water bottles, Gabby in tow, and headed over to Catawba to hike McAfee's Knob.  I've never been, and it had been close to fifteen years since Sam had hiked it (read: peak fitness level of his life), and he thought it'd be doable for the girls.

It's only like a mile or two, he said.  It'll be easy, he said. 

 

 

In reality, it was 4 miles up hill.  F-o-u-r miles.  With both our girls and a geriatric bulldog.  Because of our choice of trailmates, we received lots of "oh, good for you guys..."  and "wow, that's impressive" type comments from fellow hikers.  Next time, we know that's not a good sign.  Despite our bad choice in potential hikes, the girls did amazing.  Did I mention we were doing all this during WK's usual naptime?  She's our little sleepy singer, so at one point, she just started belting out her favorite made up songs while walking the trail. 

The last 1.9 miles were the toughest because the trail became narrow and steep.  Willa ended up being carried for a good part of that, but Harper powered through with lots of encouragement.  And then we finally got to the top, and... I wanted to lose my mind.  What on earth was I thinking?  It just did not even occur to me that the reward for this two hours of hiking was going to be an amazing view and a panic attack from having my precious darlings near deadly cliffs.  I literally was paralyzed, and basically wanted to make my girls crawl on their knees slowly, even twenty feet back from the edge.  To not minimize people that have real, actual panic attacks, I didn't really have one but my Mommy Spidey-sense was on full alert.  To the point that it was not even enjoyable. 

A sweet hiker offered to take a picture for us and posed us near this edge.  Don't worry, grandparents, Sam held Harper's hand tightly near the edge, and she held on the Gabby's leash, too.  Although this picture still makes me nervous. 

We walked past the cliffs area to some wider, set back rocks to where I could finally relax a bit.  There was still extensive hand holding, but I felt comfortable not making the girls crawl.  Haha.  We stayed up there for about an hour, just hanging out and taking in the view.  We all needed it to rest for the trek back down.  It was much easier, but still felt long.  Willa Kate fell asleep while Sam was carrying her so she snoozed for the first two miles back down the mountain.  Harper still had plenty of energy and was running down parts of the trail, until her foot caught a root and she faceplanted.  That meant mama got to carry her for about a mile.  She finally got over the scraped knee, and went back to walking, although we may have heard "I'm hungry" at least 1.2 million times in those last two miles.  And we were.  We all were hungry.  So, as soon as we got to the car, we gobbled up the rest of the snacks we packed and went straight to Parkway Brewery for a comfy seat, some live music, and a place that our soon-to-be-overly-tired kids could continue to roam. 

Playing in the creek at Parkway

The girls danced to the live music and we ate up some food truck food and met some nice new people.  What a great day outside.  We laid on moss, climbed on rocks, and ended up sleeping oh so good.