Nature Walk

Growing up, I had a couple of very nicely illustrated Berenstain Bears books, one of which was called "The Berenstain Bears Nature Guide." Recently, it was disinterred from my parent's basement and returned to me.

Sophie took an immediate shine to it, and we have read it quite a few times. After the second time or so, Sophie said that we should take "a nature walk" (which the bears do as a sort of framing device for the story).

After many, many months, we finally got around to it today. I took Sophie and Owen to the local Metropark, which I knew had a nature trail. After slathering them with DEET (don't want any West Nile, thank you very much), we took off down the two mile, very well groomed trail.

It was a good time for the most part. We saw what was probably a dead vole, mole or shrew, which was simultaneously upsetting and fascinating for Sophie (it barely registered with Owen). We saw a couple of swamps, trees, mushrooms, etc. After what was probably a mile, Sophie decided she'd had enough and wanted to go back to the car. Of course, at this point, we were on the other side of the park. So we exited the nature trail, and followed the bike trail to the van.

Ironically, on the bike trail, we spotted a deer in the near distance, which was the highlight for everyone.