Finished

We spent our Saturday after Thanksgiving taking our last hike so that B could complete his hiking merit badge. The weather was perfect, a little overcast, and not too cold.

For this hike we drove down to the Bear Mountain State Park and set out on one of the many trails that cross through the park. Our destination was just 1 and 3/4 miles and 1100 feet of elevation gain away, but in order to get the mileage B needed, we took the "scenic" route. This was probably the toughest hike we've done. Not only was our destination 1100 feet above where we started, but we had to go up and down a couple of other hills to get there so we climbed a lot more than 1100 feet.

We discovered that the great thing about hiking in the fall is that you can see a lot more without the leaves on the trees. The bad thing about the leaves not being on the trees is that they are all on the ground and that made portions of the trail a little more dangerous than normal. We had to be extra careful not to slip on rocks and we had to watch out that when we stepped on hidden rocks, we didn't twist an ankle.

On this hike, we learned the value of carrying extra socks (we always do) because both C and P got wet feet. Many sections of the trail were muddy and swampy due to the large amounts of rain we had received earlier in the week. In some cases the trail was a small stream and we had to pick our away along the sides and back and forth across it.

Here are the kids taking a break.

Our destination was well worth the effort. Although it was a bit hazy, we could still see NYC from the top of the mountain. P had the good idea to bring our binoculars on this hike and with them, we could even pick out the Empire state building.


We also climbed the tower that now stands where a fire tower used to be. Inside the tower are pictures and history of the park. We didn't take the time to really look at them or read them since we had to keep hurrying along so that we could get finished with the hike. But, since you can actually drive all the way to the tower, we can do that another time with very little effort.

There is also a very beautiful and relatively flat 1.3 mile loop at the top that will be beautiful when the bushes start blooming in the spring. While we were hiking this loop, we got a great view north. The flat, cleared area with little houses on the top of a hill in this picture, is the new housing area that was built here.

Our route down was a newly restored section of the Appalachian Trail. It was pretty steep and incorporated many stone steps to help combat erosion. We gave C the job of counting the steps as we went down. After a 1.7 mile descent, she told us that we had gone down over 670 stairs. (Not all of the trail was steps.) There were even complete stairwells in portions of the trail. Here is P in one of them.

If you want to read more information about this portion of the trail, click here.

With the leaves off of the trees, there were lots of views that would have been obstructed other times during the year. We had several views of the bridge and river as we came down the mountain.

The required hikes for the merit badge have been a little bit long and strenuous for the shorter legged people in our family. So, we kept telling the kids that as soon as we are done with the required hikes, that then we would take shorter hikes and just hike for fun.

Our hike on Saturday ended with this wonderful comment by P. "Now can we hike for fun?"

I thought we had already been having fun! :-)

Almost Forgotten Halloween

Clearly life has been busy. It wasn't until I was uploading photos from our most recent hike (post to come later this week) that I realized that I hadn't upload, and therefore hadn't blogged about, our Halloween.

So, here are a few pictures from our Halloween activities.

Of course, we carved pumpkins. B still hates to take the seeds and "goop" out of the inside, but loves to do the actual carving.

C doesn't mind the goop so much and also loves getting to carve.

Thanks to all of the great pumpkin carving tools, the process is safe and easy enough that even P can carve a pumpkin. Hers was her own design.

Here are our glowing pumpkins.

P got to dress up twice for Halloween. First as a cowgirl for her class's Fall celebration and Hoe Down. Here she is demonstrating her hat swinging "Yee Ha" (minus the hat that was at school).

To go trick-or-treating, P dressed up as a mouse using parts of her own items and the ears from C's long ago dance costume. The orange shirt underneath was not part of her costume...just an extra layer to keep her warm as this year it was a little chilly on Halloween night.

C was a robot of the Tron variety. Being her usual, creative self, she came up with the idea all on her own and her costume turned out pretty cool.
Here she is with the lights out.

B chose not to dress up this year. Instead, he volunteered to man the door and pass out candy. After observing R do this job the last few years, he realized that this was the best way to get candy with very little work. So, he sat outside and visited with his friend until they got too cold, and then they came inside and played video games, answered the door, and had all of the candy they wanted to eat, without having to walk anywhere to get it. (I should have taken a picture. Oh, well.)

All in all, it was a good holiday!