Our Little Explore

The sun shone and it was warm and breezy. I knew we needed to go down to the park for a picnic and a little explore. We went to walmart and got a rotisserie chicken, fresh mozzarella, orange juice, rolls, and lolly pops and headed for the "prickly park" (really known as Swansons Park, but anything with thorns that grows in Kansas is there. Thus the "Prickly Park").

This park is not a play park. It is a walking park. There are lots of dogs and dog poo, a river and some bridges. Side walks take you around about a 2 1/2 mile walk, but people, dogs, and horses have formed their own paths through the woods. Ruth, Kate, and Johnny always want to go through the woods. I never want to because I never want to push the stroller through the woods. But today I thought maybe we could take one of these paths to find an open grassy spot for our picnic. We did find a nice solitary grassy spot. The kids complained that the grass was too prickly to be good for picnicking, but I vetoed their objections based on the fact that all the grass in Kansas on March first is prickly and we would not find a soft spot that was dry. Thus we took off our jackets, sat down in the dead grass and enjoyed a meal in the beautiful sunshine. After cleaning up all of our trash and all of our hands and faces we began our explore. Because the woodsy path we were at seemed open and wide and not too difficult to push a stroller through I gave in to the kids pleas and we began our journey through the woods. We were on the north side of the river with some smaller cliffs than the usual sidewalk (south side) of the river so the kids got to wander down and play by the water. Ruth, Kate, Johnny, Adam, and Rachel joyously climbed trees, ran through woods, and walked around the waters edge. They were having such a good time that I decided we should stay on the path. As a child, I loved the woods and was fortunate enough to always live next to woods. I explored in the woods daily until I was 11. I 'm sorry that my own children have not had that pleasure. So I decided to stay on the rough wooded path rather than turning around to find the paved path. At first our path was wide and well trodden. I felt certain that eventually it would lead us to the paved path. But the path got narrower, hillier, and harder to push the stroller through. The kids kept asking me if we were lost. Technically I knew we were definitely not lost and that it would be easy to retrace our steps, but when our path ended at a rusty barbed wire fence I declared that we were lost. (I really had no idea what our direction in the park was, and which way to turn to get us out. But I knew that the area was small enough that we weren't really lost.) Ruth, Kate, and Johnny exclaimed gleefully that it is scary to be lost and how they would never forget this explore. Ruth even thanked me for the memory. Well we ended up turning around and walking east. By the time we got to the barbed wire there was no clear path and it took us a while and some awkward pushing, pulling, and lifted of the stroller to get through the woods. We did find our original trail and made it back to pavement without much trouble. Kate and Johnny ran and shouted how wonderful it was not be lost when we approached the sidewalk. (I thought how wonderful it was to be pushing a large stroller on pavement rather than mud and sticks). We had a great explore. The kids were excited to come home and tell Dad about their adventure and they all talked about how we must do this again soon. It was really fun to be out in nature with my kids. We will definitely go exploring again. But next time-- No Stroller!!