A Family in the Woods

Well we decided to take advantage of the unusually warm January weather and take the kids out geocaching and for a picnic yesterday. We decided to head over the mountain to find a few caches we hadn't yet picked up. (For those of you who don't know what geocaching is we describe it as, "using multi-million dollar government satellites to find Tupperware hidden in the woods." Check out http://www.geocaching.com/ for more information.) Tom packed up a picnic lunch for us to stop at a picnic area on Skyline Drive on the way back. Erin was totally enthused about the idea of a picnic. She's been playing picnic with her guys and little pets recently so all she could talk about was "time for the picnic yet?"

Our GPS sent us a little screwey in the beginning but once we got it set back on track we headed off to the first cache. This one was in a little park in a small town of Shenandoah (on the way to Luray Caverns from here). It stood on the site of an historic furnace. There was a little pond, picnic tables and a walking path. The kids were excited to see some ducks in the pond. Jeffrey and Tom walked down towards it for a closer look. As usual Jeffrey was wiggling to get away. Tom restrained him well though, until he fell for the old, "OK Daddy I give up" trick. At that point Jeffrey bolted immediately into the pond. Tom caught him by the back of his shirt (appropriately his "Little Wild Man" shirt) before he fell face first. Still he was soaked from his thighs down. Mind you we had left the diaper bag by the front door and this was the first stop. He didn't seem bothered by it so we just kept on. Found the first cache without any trouble and moved along to the next one which was very nearby at an old general store.

After nabbing that one, we decided to skip the one we had printed out that required the mile long hike up the mountain and do another that was marked as relatively simple. It took us to a really cool Civil War Furnace site in the George Washington National Forest. The furnace was huge...about 30 feet tall. Right next to a confluence of 2 smaller streams into one slightly larger one. The setting was beautiful. Given Jeffrey's recent expedition into the pond he was confined to the backpack as soon as we got out of the car. We let Erin go explore around the stream though. I even got her to sit so I could take some pictures in front of the stream. We headed off on a walk to find the rest of the cache. Since it was pretty cloudy the GPS was jumping all over the place. We're pretty sure we were in the right place for the actual cache, just couldn't get right on it. With it beginning to get into the afternoon and Erin still focused on the picnic we abandoned that effort and headed back up into the mountains for lunch.

There must have been a strong wind storm since the last time we were up here as many many trees were bent or broken. The picnic area we had planned on eating at was closed to cars. We decided to park in a little area out front and walk in anyway. There were trees down all over the place, but the tables were still standing and there was enough room for the kids to run around. We had a Frisbee and ball with us too. Both kids immediately started eating, but it didn't last long as they wanted to explore the area. They peeked around trees and kicked the ball around. They even decided to play some hide-and-seek (still one of Erin's favorite games). Erin loved hiding behind the different trees - no matter how small they were. Jeffrey doesn't quite have the hang of it yet though. So if you aren't sure where the hider is...just follow Jeffrey who is generally loudly trying to hide alongside. So we all finished with lunch, climbed around on the fallen trees with daddy and just had a "great outdoors" day. All in all it was a blast.

By the time we drove the 6 miles back down the mountain Jeffrey was fast asleep and Erin wasn't far behind. What a perfect way to wear the kids out and have a great family day together.