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.