Yesterday while I was biking down the
Neuse River Trail in Raleigh North Carolina, I rode through, and geocached in, a charming little park.
As I was doing so, I thought to myself "self, this would be a great place to bring the kids".
Since I think myself is a brilliant sort of fellow, I decided to listen to myself.
So this morning I did just that: I took my wife, kids, and Bailey The Wonder Puppy, to Anderson Point Park, and had ourselves an adventure.
We started by walking along the same paved path I biked on yesterday.
The first cache was a couple hundred feet in the woods, so we soon took a detour and did some bushwhacking. The woods are actually really nice, with little undergrowth - just good old fashioned deciduous trees and fallen leaves.
The kids soon located the prize: a 50 cal ammo can.
The trickiest part was actually lifting the ammo can. The temperature was in the 40s, so to avoid complaints of cold toddler hands, the kids were wearing woolen mittens. This made their hands slippery, and the handle hard to grab. Zeke managed to figure it out eventually.
With the logbook signed we headed off to one of the signature pieces of the park - a super deluxe pedestrian bridge. Zeke absolutely *loves* pedestrian bridges, so it was a real treat for him to check it out. We actually visited it twice. The first time we went half way, then came back. He insisted we go back and walk across the whole thing. So we did.
After the bridge experience, we headed off into the woods once more to check out the Neuse River. Zeke brought stones so he could toss them into the water.
We then sat down at this cool circular bench setup they had (perhaps 30-40ft in diameter). Very impressive, and makes a great race track for the 5-and-under crowd. We stopped there to snack on beef jerky and twizzlers.
Properly snacked, Zeke and I headed off to find another geocache. This one was near the edge of a swamp. I told Zeke that this was the swamp that Shrek came from. He declined the opportunity to believe me.
He also did something I didn't know he could do: walk across a fallen log without falling to his muddy demise. I was suitably impressed.
After the find, we packed up and headed back to the car. The kids decided to "walk" the dog.
We then headed home to feast on leftover Thanksgiving food, and Kraft Dinner (for the kids - yeah, thats it - for the kids...)
What did you fine folks do this Saturday? If you had fun, let me know about it in the comments.
Cheers!
