go take a hike

anyone who knows me knows that i'm not an outdoorswoman by any stretch of the imagination.  i love nature and marvel at God's creation and celebrate the plants and animals near me -- all through the window.  i will never go camping, so if our children ever have any hope of pitching a tent and sleeping under the stars, they better warm up to chris because i prefer to be snug in my bed with the heat on.

but, in an effort to compromise, i came up with the brilliant idea last weekend that we should take a family hike.  i actually enjoy walking through the woods every now and then, and as long as i'm not too far away from civilization, i knew we would have fun.  so chris did a little bit of research and printed out a map of a nearby park, and once we were dressed fairly warmly and in comfortable shoes, we set out for our adventure.

and what an adventure it turned out to be; one that i'm sure liam and susanna will be talking about for years to come.  it all started with the ill-fated decision to allow the kids to choose which trail we were going to take.  we'd started on what was basically a gravel road -- no cars allowed, but quite cleared and flat.   but liam felt like we should be doing something a bit more interesting, so at our first crossroads, he chose to take us left onto a path that was marked Loblolly Trail.

we consulted our map and surmised that it was about a two-mile walk.  it was 3:00 pm and the time had not yet changed, so we figured we'd be back at the car well before it started to get dark.  we took twists and turns, walked over bridges and over roots, stepped on rocks and climbed up hills.  (upon further scrutiny we learned that we were on one of the few trails labeled "moderate" instead of "easy".)  the kids LOVED it.  liam was the leader and susanna was the scout (not really quite sure the difference, but they relished their roles) and they always made sure we were following the blue squares nailed into the trees that guided us on our way.  "I SEE THE BLUE SQUARE!" they'd chime together.  we collected leaves and threw rocks into the creeks and talked about the animal sounds around us.

it was fun, for the first 45 minutes or so.  but then their little legs started to tire.  and soon, they started wondering how much longer we'd be walking.  shoot, i started wondering how much longer we'd be walking.  the map was of no help, and neither were the people we encountered coming from the other direction.  "are we close to the road?" liam would ask each one.  "oh, no, honey," they'd reply, "you've got a ways to go."  i tried to remain upbeat, telling the kids, "oh, i think we're almost there!", or, "it looks like the end is at the top of the hill!"  but after four or five times doing this, chris turned around and with gritted teeth requested that i knock it off.  seemed his patience was wearing as thin as the kids'.

we finally, FINALLY came to the end of the trail, which deposited us back on the gravel road where we'd begun three hours prior -- or so we thought.  we looked left.  we looked right.  we looked at the map.  and nothing looked familiar.  we asked a biker, and he gave us a quizzical look and basically told us that we were actually not where we had started at all. 

this is why i hate the outdoors, i thought.  dadgum nature.

the kids, at this point, were done.  they were exhausted, they were thirsty, and they were simply not interested in hiking any farther.  we assessed the situation and came up with two solutions: one, chris could turn around and retrace our steps for about a mile, find the car, and come pick us up.  or two, we could flag someone down in the parking area and hopefully catch a ride.  seemed that chris was also exhausted and thirsty and simply not interested in hiking any farther, because he chose option #2.

he approached a little gray VW that was leaving the parking lot and asked the driver to roll down her window.  she seemed a bit confused -- who wouldn't be, with a strange man flagging you down? -- so i joined him with the kids to show her that he was safe; simply a father whose family had gotten a little off course.  turned out that her confusion primarily rested on the fact that she was french and did not understand english all that well.  but she smiled, said that she would be happy to help us, and invited all four of us to pile in.  i could have kissed her.

she asked chris to use her GPS, and it turned out that we were so off course that the only way to get back was on the interstate.  so there we were, chris in the front seat and me with the kids in the back, and my imagination started running wild.  what have we gotten ourselves into?... we're essentially hitchhiking with this french woman named gayle we've known for all of two minutes in a rented car ... she obviously has no idea where she's going or how our highways work ... do the french even drive on the right side of the road?  oh thank goodness i think they do ... i'm in the back seat with my two children and no car seats ...  we're going to be rear-ended by someone because europeans do not know how to drive on american interstates and we're going to wind up on the side of the road and the paramedics will find us and the only person who has any sort of i.d. on her is gayle ... they're going to wonder who these other people are ... when will someone report us missing? ... and more importantly, what parents allow their 4- and 6-year olds to ride in the back of a compact car without any car seats? ...  it will make the newspapers and everyone we know will remark how horrible we are as parents and i just hope we have a chance to explain what happened because we're not normally this irresponsible and i will never, ever go hiking again.

needless to say, we survived.  we arrived back at our car, safe and sound, and profusely thanked that angel named gayle for the additional thirty minutes she spent ferrying us around raleigh on her saturday afternoon. we will go hiking again ... we'll just make absolutely sure we know where we're going next time around.

yeah, for that day, i'd have to say that hiking wasn't all that it was CRACKed up to be.   

(sorry, i just couldn't resist.)