The Littlest Adventures: hiking

When my husband broke his toe the first night camping in Big Bend National Park (a later story, I promise!) and we opted out of a single long day hike and picked multiple shorter ones instead, we really got to see our oldest son in action. One of the hikes we chose was out to Balanced Rock, what was it exactly? We had no idea! We didn't look much into this hike because we had 0 cell service in the park, but it was short enough for if we needed to turn around it wouldn't be a big deal. So we packed up our snacks and water, slathered on sunscreen, threw the 3 year old up on my back, and headed out into the desert...after a fun, bumpy 4 wheel drive ride out to the trail head of course.

The trail was windy, warm, and flat. We were glad we had brought along our hats! The outside temperature was only in the 70s, but being in the desert it felt much warmer. After walking on the sandy trail for a while, looking everywhere for wildlife, we finally passed a couple returning who told us our son was about to have the best time rock scrambling, and my first reaction was, say whattt?! Those type of trails are my favorite, but how would our son do? How much rock scramble did they actually mean? I mean, they didn't say boulder, so we should be ok, right?

Our son was already complaining about being tired (he wasn't, it wasn't THAT long of a trail and certainly wasn't tough...remember, I said FLAT!), but that's kind of his thing. It isn't a pleasant thing, but he complains on every hike when we first start out. As soon as we reached the incline though, I didn't hear another peep. My husband followed close behind, making sure he didn't misstep and fall. We told him he could use his feet AND his hands, it took a little convincing but he realized that his hands would help. My husband only helped him where he needed it, but he mostly climbed up and up by himself. A lot of his first hikes were on the Appalachian Trail so he knows to look for the white blazes, this hike he was looking for actual posts that had the direction of where to go, when terrain is rocky it can sometimes be tricky to see which way the trail goes. There were plenty of "watch where you're going!" and "think about your next step!" sayings going out, but he made it to the top, and the snack break was well deserved. He is confident in his hiking, or at least acts it, but always feels shows a sense of pride when we compliment him on a job well done.

Learning to slow down and think about your next move is important on these trails, especially being that it was windy. He slipped ONCE on the way back down, but remembered what we always say and leaned back so he'd land on his bottom...not his face. He didn't get hurt, laughed it off, and assured us he'd be more careful next time. With him getting older and growing out of the carrier stage, watching him "climb mountains" is something I'm trying to get used to, even if it's a little scary.

View from Shuckstack Mountain Fire Tower

As mentioned before, we love getting out and visiting the National Parks, so a few weeks ago we had the pleasure of taking a 6 day/7 night family vacation up in the beautiful Smoky Mountains. When we take vacations where a lot of driving is required, we attempt to leave as early in the morning as we can. We usually shoot for 5 AM, but end up leaving closer to 6 because I am the mom and lets be real--5 AM just isn't always going to happen when we have an almost 3 year old and a 7 month old! This trip though we were all amazingly in the car by 5:10--car packed, baby fed, toddler ready to continue sleeping, husband impressed. He goes to start the car and ~~we were on our way~~ that dreadful 'click click click' of a dead battery had us looking at each other like we were being Punk'd. Yeah, not a sound you want to hear at 5 in the morning as you are about to leave for vacation! No worries though right? We have another car, we can just give it a jump and assess the problem later. WRONG. The jumper cable was in the dead SUV, under the floor boards, UNDER THE LUGGAGE. Did you know that you can't lift a power tail gate when the battery is dead? Luckily I have an awesome dad, and he came to the rescue that morning giving us the jump we needed to get on the road.

During the drive, we keep our toddler entertained with books, games on the Kindle Fire, and movies. He is really into The Music Man right now, so he pretty much watched that movie for the entire drive. We purchased these SoundBot for Kids headphones earlier this year for another road trip, and we love them. They are blue tooth so you can sync them to any device, and they are specifically made for children so there is a volume cap which doesn't allow the headphones to get too loud. They allow him to watch his movie, the baby to the sleep, and for us to keep our sanity by listening to the music we choose. We also try to keep stops minimal and only stop for quick meals or coffee breaks. Since I am breastfeeding, I try to pump while the baby is sleeping so I can give him a bottle when he gets hungry rather than stopping and wasting 15-20 minutes every 2 hours or so. I will nurse him as usual though whenever we do stop, because the bottle doesn't always do the trick. The trip up took us about 11 hours, and aside from getting gas, we only stopped twice.

(Side note: Comotomo is a great bottle to use with a breastfed baby. It is the ONLY bottle my first son would take after trying at least 7 other types, so with Cade there was no question or trial and error when it came to choosing a bottle. He took it for the first time without a protest, mom win!)

We love our Comotomo!

When we go up to the mountains, we are all about the cabin life so we rented a GREAT place with an AMAZING view for this trip. For us, a view is always a must, and this cabin did not disappoint. We stayed in Robinsonville roughly 20 minutes from Fontana Dam, and our cabin overlooked the Tennessee River--which feeds into Fontana Lake, as well as the National Park-my husband was pretty stoked about this factor. This place was pretty much in the middle of nowhere on a gravel road where cell phones don't work and GPS tells you to use caution---it was perfect! It wasn't a huge cabin, but there was just enough room. It had 3 bedrooms--2 upstairs where we and the kids stayed, and the master downstairs where my in-laws slept when they came a few days later. There was a pool table/ping pong table inside which doubled as a dining room table, rockers on the back porch, and a hot tub and fire pit out on the lawn area for enjoying the view.

Day 1 in a nutshell was spent crying over a dead car battery, driving, grocery shopping (for my husband) and unpacking so we weren't living out of our suitcases for the duration of the trip. We tried having the boys sleep in the same room that first night, but the baby woke up numerous times so we ended up moving him into our room for the remainder of the trip. The first night was really windy, with gusts up to 40 mph, as Hurricane Matthew was sitting on the other coast, so we weren't able to enjoy the hot tub or fire pit that evening. "Early" to bed was the plan!

Day 2 -

On the trail heading back from the dock.

We knew we wouldn't want to get out and do too much on this day after driving the day before, so we really just hung around the cabin, enjoying the outdoors and cool [freezing] weather. The cabin owners do have a trail down to the river with a dock and have a boat, jet skis, and kayaks for the renters to be able to enjoy on the river and lake. We only rented the kayaks-which we ended up not using, but we did make our way down to the dock on this day. In the Fall/Winter months, they lower Lake Fontana by 50 feet, so it was a really neat sight to see the lake that low and just how steep the edges are, but for this reason we weren't able to enjoy sitting out on the dock since it was dry and very steep. We took a drive over to the dam as we had a hike planned later that week that crosses it. I haven't been to a dam in probably 15 years so it was really neat to see and learn about. The "holes" freaked out our toddler, and he kept saying for the duration of the trip that he didn't want to go in them. Why he would think he would go in them is beyond me!