Hiking Woodlawn with Grace

Grace surprised me twice in a week; first saying that she wanted to go to a baseball game last weekend, and then saying the she wanted to go hiking with me in the woods this weekend.

Her primary request was that we go for a walk in the woods, and that this not be a geocaching outing. This was easy enough to accommodate, but since I wasn't sure how much the idea of walking in the woods would translate into the actual effort of doing so, I planned a brief but pretty little hike in an area of the Woodlawn Tract that I know very well (and that is very close to home). It's always good to have an exit strategy...

Hike plot - 2 mile out and back

We left home at a reasonable hour on Sunday morning, drove the 7 or 8 minutes to the trailhead, and were on the trail by about 9am. Over the course of the next hour, we had a really nice time together, covering about 2 miles in total, or a mile out and a mile back. She hiked at a nice pace, and we spent a good amount of time stopping to look at various plants and things, and to enjoy the streams and other sights along the way.

My little hiker

We walked through woods, meadows, along farm fields, and crossed a stream 6 or 8 times. At the end of it, she pronounced it "fun", asked when we could go out again, and whether we could go further next time. She also wants "real hiking shoes like you have."

I will count this as a significant victory.