Let's go fishing!

Yesterday was hot. HOT. Dry, thirsty hot. Our county is experiencing a severe drought, even after a bit of rain, and the plants are feeling the burn. The grass in the yard crunches under your feet. So, what to do when the sun is out, the grass is crunchy, and the kids want to play?! Go fishing!

Matt took his trusty fishing rod from Uncle Gregg, Clare grabbed a net for catching butterflies, dragonflies, minnows and crayfish, everyone put on some shoes for water wading, and we were on our way!

There's a quiet place to explore near the base of a local dam, and the kids love it. The boys walked off together to fish, so Clare and I enjoyed some girl time and I let her lead the way! 

Clare would make an excellent tour guide. She thoughtfully warned that the water was cool before I took a step into it, but that it'd feel really nice on a hot day. She was right! She showed me that if she walked like Godzilla through the water (while demonstrating slow deliberate steps) that it created brown clouds in the water that looked like nuclear mushroom clouds. 

She showed me how to kick the muck off my feet, and giggled when it plopped into the water. "That was fun, right mom?" Asking "right mom?" occurs at least 20 times a day, and I love it. She's looking for me to say "right Clare", to let her know she's on to something, she's had a good idea, and it makes her proud. 

There was so much to explore! We discovered these tiny rocks arranged together and decided that it looked like an arrow. Where did it come from? Why was it there? It was a great opportunity to use our imaginations and clues to form a hypothesis and develop a story. Sometimes our stories get a little silly and may involve aliens, mermaids, or frog dance parties. You just never know, and that's part of the fun. This looked like the work of frogs pointing to their dance party, obviously.

The tall grass was full of excitement. Dragonflies ranging in size and shades of greens and blues dashed about and kept Clare busy in her attempts to catch them with her net. The girl has balance! She didn't slip once on those slippery rocks, and I was impressed. 

After tiring of dragonflies we decided to look for crayfish. They're fast! Any movement in the water caused a swirl of brown ick that cloaked the crayfish long enough for them to find shelter under a rock. It was like playing hide-n-seek! You knew they were under a rock, but which one.....

Boy were they fast! But Clare was faster and she caught one!

There were other neat-o things to notice in the water too. We found another heart rock for my friend Joan! Joan would have loved playing in the water with us...

We thought the shadows in the water from this leaf resembled the dots on the tail of a redfish! Uncle Gregg would be proud!

There were fossils. Some had the markings of tiny seashells. How did that happen? We don't live by the ocean. Great conversations can be started from the questions of children. 

Do you see shell imprints?

A few weeks ago we noticed someone had created rock balancing sculptures along the rocky hillside at the top of the dam. We decided to give it a try. How hard could it be? Just stack 'em up, right? It looked easy enough. Well, it's surprisingly a lot harder than it looks. It toppled over several times, but the splashes were refreshing in the heat and we had a lot of fun.

When we needed a rest we sat on a big rock with our feet in the water and looked around. There were seeds floating about that would land in the water and slowly glide along the top. We practiced our aim and tossed rocks at them, using words to described the sound of the splashes, like "kerplunk", "blup", "plop", "bloop", "splish", "swoosh", "splosh", and many many more. Bigger rocks made bigger and deeper sounds. 

Matthew returned to his fishing so Clare and I continued playing with rocks. We worked together to find rocks to form a mermaid in the water. It was like making our very own puzzle! Clare did a great job using tiny rocks to make the scales. We brainstormed ideas for how to make her hands and hair. There were all sorts of things we could have used, but decided to stick with rocks only. We experimented with making faces and decided she looked better without one. Wouldn't it be cool for someone else to find it while they're out exploring? What a cool surprise!

Rocks also make excellent desks and chairs. Clare pretended she was an artist working on signing her name with wet muck from the water. Resourceful! It took a couple of tries. The sun was so hot it dried up her letters before she could get to the "e" at the end of her name! Can you believe that we forgot to take water along with us to drink?! Crazy, right?! A truly terrible plan. So, we decided to stop for a Gatorade treat on the way home and chatted about our favorite parts of the day. There were A BUNCH of favorite parts! Had we remembered to take water, the day would have cost only a bit of gas to get there and a few hours of our time. A day well spent, an investment in our children worth making, and a fun day all around. 

Let's go EXPLORING!

My children love adventure as much as their parents do. When the kids are squirrely and the weather is nice we often say "let's go exploring", and boy do they get excited! They know that such outings might include looking for cool rocks on the road that runs adjacent to U.S. Route 15 (we have a jar of rocks that we've collected and they can tell you about each and every one of them), fishing at Cowanesque Lake, investigating a local waterfall and practicing our stone skipping, playing at a playground we've never visited before, bug collecting along the dike, or metal detecting at the waters edge. No matter what the adventure, there's always something to see, something to study, something to touch, and it's always fun!

My family knows that I enjoy hiking. Watkins Glen is one of my favorite places to take the kids on a sunny day. There are stone stairs and walkways that are easy for them to climb, tunnels and bridges that are fun to explore, stone walls to prevent them from tumbling, waterfalls to touch and admire, puddles to splash in or step around, and paths through the woods with little creatures to watch. 

Look at all of those stairs.....and it was so hot!

At one point my son told me that he thought hiking the glen must be like hiking the Appalachian Trail. No son, not quite...A little water break helped and we were back at it! I think I can, I think I can.....

Tired of walking? Need to catch your breath? No problem! Step aside so others can pass by and take in the view! It's such a beautiful place! 

We always watch for heart-shaped rocks while exploring anywhere. This tradition started last summer while hiking with my dear friend Joan. While she took us on an adventure through old pastures, woods and streams, she shared that when her kids were little they would look for heart-shaped rocks while they were exploring to gift to her. My children now look for them too. If we can't carry the stone back to gift personally we take a picture of it to send to her just to make her feel special. She's one of the kindest, sweetest, most giving people on the planet and I love to make her smile. So do my kids! That makes me proud.

One of the best parts about exploring is that no one is in a hurry. If you want to check out the butterfly on the leaf, you can do that. If you want to follow the bug on the path to see where he lives, great! Let's go! On this particular adventure we decided to try a path we'd never hiked before. When the path forked we played rock-paper-scissors to decide which direction to go. It's fun to try new things. We walked through the woods, found a shelter similar to those on the Appalachian Trail (much to Matthew's delight), we watched chipmunks chase each other from one tree to another, and we met a nice family that was staying at a nearby campsite and shared ideas for things to do in town. At the end of the path the woods opened up to a swimming area, some beautiful old stone buildings, a picnic area, and a pond! Ponds are magical places to explore!

This pond was a pond that Claude Monet surely would have painted. Sunny spots reflecting the sky, darker areas shaded by trees, and loads of lily pads!

At the end of each day we ask our kids what the best part of their day was. Matthew and Clare liked this little frog best of all. We looked for his family and friends, but they must've been taking an afternoon nap. 

Kids need adventure and fresh air, and grown ups do too! Grab some bottles of water, a camera, put on your hiking shoes and go exploring! Your kids will love it, and you just might too!

Adventure is OUT THERE!

                    

Last spring a group of fellow teachers began planning a trip to hike a small portion of the Appalachian Trail and they invited me to join them!!! Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity to have a little adventure. For weeks we read books and blogs about hiking, researched what to pack and how to pack it, compared lists and notes, talked with people who have hiked the AT, and after a couple of months we had a mix of new and borrowed gear and were ready to go! 

We met several folks hiking the AT, most of them alone, some young, some old, a few pairs, a few groups of 3, but we were by far the largest group with 7 in all. Your goal each day is to walk as many miles as you can, reach a shelter or water source, and not hurt yourself. Hiking sounds harder than walking, because it is. Each of us carried a pack loaded with everything you need to live and be comfortable for a total of 4 days. Food, water, shelter, layers, sleeping bag, water filter, bug spray, pocket knife, and the list goes on. After several attempts at packing and discarding items that I thought maybe I could live without, my pack ended up weighing a total of 29 pounds, which included 2 large bottles of water. Water is essential, it's hard to come by on the AT in Pennsylvania, and it weighs a lot.

Eventually you stop worrying about how tired, sweaty, dirty, wet and thirsty you are because those discomforts aren't going away. You need to keep walking. Once you get used to carrying your pack, climbing rocks, and being less tidy than is typically comfortable you think about a lot of other things and you start to notice and appreciate what's around you. 

While hiking and climbing I mentally worked out a lesson plan for 4th graders making parodies of American Gothic by Grant Wood. When we stopped for a water break I shared my idea with the group and asked Dave and Erin Good if they'd be willing to pose for a quick caricature sketch when we set up camp later. They happily agreed to help me out, so in return I intend to draw a clean version of the sketch for them to keep. A little AT souvenir. I thought it would be fun for students to see teachers they know as my example, I'd be able to share the story in the picture, and they'd know I really do take my sketchbook with me EVERYWHERE! 

This picture sums up a lot of what we learned the first day. When we began our hike that day it was misty and we knew that it would rain at some point. Within the first half hour we met an old man sitting outside of a shelter COVERED in gypsy moths. Gross. He fully intended to sleep with them crawling all over because he said a storm was coming and he was done hiking for the day. We were just getting started and hoped to reach the next shelter before the storm, approximately 10 miles away. Like most folks we encountered on the trail, he told us about what the trail would be like for the next few miles ahead. He described it as flat for a mile or two. It wasn't entirely true, there were winding hills going up and down through the woods, but perhaps he said that because there were far fewer boulders to climb.

Surprisingly most of the AT we hiked had cell service! I was able to call my husband to let him know we were all safe. I shared a picture of the misty woods with my brother-in-law and he thought it looked kind of like Endor (a Star Wars reference). My kids agreed. 

We met a few hikers briskly walking the opposite direction, trying to get to the shelter covered in gypsy moths before the storm. Throughout the afternoon we saw people setting up camps in the woods, stopping for the day even though there were a few hours of daylight left. We should have taken the hint. It began to mist and sprinkle, then thunder. The thunder got closer and closer. We realized we weren't going to reach the first shelter and had better set up camp. The moment my pack hit the ground to set up my tent the sky opened up. Torrential rain. We were instantly soaked. Thankfully we'd lined our packs with trash bags, a helpful hint from our reading paid off!

Having 7 people in our group was pretty handy in the middle of the storm. We worked as a team to set up a large tarp to pitch tents under, protected our packs, Wynn Doan and Nick Vasco made a campfire, and we feasted on hot dogs for dinner!!! They were the best hot dogs I'd ever had. They tasted like victory. 

When we returned from our hike I started reading "A Walk In The Woods" by Bill Bryson. It tells the tale of his AT hiking adventure and I literally laughed out loud. He describes the types of rocks that you encounter on the trail and it nearly mirrors what I jotted down in my sketchbook. Smaller rocks jab the bottoms of your feet and twist your ankles, larger rocks test your balance, large boulders are for climbing (often with the help of a friend), and sunny rocks are home to snakes. We experienced them all.

Teachers think about their students a lot more than people realize. When choosing my gaiters, which cover your shoes to prevent dirt and rubble from getting in them while you hike, I chose a Day of the Dead theme! We learn a lot about it in 3rd grade while talking about Mexican artist Frida Kahlo...anyway, they sure did come in handy and the fun pattern made me smile. 

Most shelters on the trail are a 3 sided cabin with a raised platform inside that can sleep 6-8 people "comfortably". Some have a picnic table, some don't. We saw a few but never stayed in one.

Our last night was spent at a shelter that was run by the local hiking club in Eckville. It felt like we were staying in a hotel!

 There was a small outdoor privy just up the hill (yesssss!!!!!!). 

It was a large simple building with wooden bunks inside, a simple table and chairs, an outdoor faucet for refilling bottles (a sign warned that it was not for doing laundry), and a picnic table. A homeless woman joined us at the shelter for the night. She said she spent her days hiking the trail, occasionally working in hiker towns, and explained that the cupboard on the wall was a hiker box, where people leave extra items for other hikers to take if they need them. We left a few things behind and shared our extra food. When she realized it was our last night on the trail she said she felt sorry for us for having to return to "that world". We were sad to be ending our adventure, but pretty excited for a McDonald's breakfast. 

Hopefully hiking sections of the AT will become a fun tradition for our group to look forward to each year. I can't wait to return!