I got a really good book this summer:60 Hikes Within 60 Miles. The American Hiking Association publishes these guides, contracting experienced local hikers to hike trails in a metro area and to write a guide to them. The guide provides directions to the trails listed, including GPS coordinates to the trailhead. The author of the Cincinnati guide, Tamara York, noted that she hikes with both of her daughters, who are under five. This, of course, made me feel like a slacker. I love hiking. I don't do it often enough with my children. Besides Ms. York's guidebook, another book on the topic of kids and nature influences me greatly, Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv. Mr. Louv argues that our children are experiencing a dearth of unstructured time in nature. He has named this condition Nature Deficiency which he feels "describes the human costs of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses. The disorder can be detected in individuals, families, and communities. Nature deficit can even change human behavior in cities, which could ultimately affect their design, since long-standing studies show a relationship between the absence, or inaccessibility, of parks and open space with high crime rates, depression, and other urban maladies." Righto. I'll do my part to save civilization, Mr. Louv. Me and the kids'll hit the trail.
See, I'm all down with the idea of going hiking with my kids. My parents took me hiking all the time as a kid. I don't question the benefit of doing this. But I have a hard time making it work. I feel as though the kids and I have to suffer together to make our natural contact meaningful or something. Maybe I'm just trying too hard. I got my 60 Hikes book and looked up a location near our house that had fossils. We'd just seen a documentary about fossil hunting, and they were both into the idea. So I said, "Great! Let's go to Stonelick Park." The directions in the book seemed pretty straightforward, listing the drive time as being about 25 minutes. I'd never been there in my life, of course. Still, I confidently thought, "No problem. We can do this in the time between swimming lessons (10:00) and gymnastics (4:00). Of course, it didn't work out as planned. Here are the pitfalls I fell into:
1. Yeah, the directions are straightforward IF YOU READ CAREFULLY. I didn't of course. So I missed a turn.
2. My children have limited experience in Ohio State Parks, and I'd forgotten about the nasty toilets there. Hamilton County Parks and city parks all have flush toilets and sinks, not to mention toilet paper. Luckily for myself, I had brought t.p. with me. I still couldn't convince my daughter that she wouldn't contract some unmentionable disease from contact with the gross toilets.
3. While the hike listed in the book sounded interesting, I think we covered about an eighth of it. Vincent gets tired pretty easily. Plus (sorry Richard Louv-I guess I've overscheduled my kids) I was fool enough to do this on a day when we had two other scheduled activities between our hike.
Despite the rough going, I'm going to keep hiking with my kids. What I intend to try in the future is to NOT try to go to a new park when we have to be somewhere right after the hike (duh, right? Well, I'm stubborn about trying stuff when I want to try it). I'm going to insist that we use the potties in the park. They'll thank me for it later if they get stuck in a bar in Europe and have to use a Turkish toilet. Go where you have a hole (or a tree, if necessary). I'm going to give them journals to draw/write what they see. I'm going to give them baggies to put in leaves or stuff they find (of course within reason. I know they're not supposed to take stuff from the park). I will get them their own cameras to take pictures of the hike. Vincent took this picture of Lily on our hike.
Even after the potties and my missing a turn and our mad rush and subsequent late arrival to gymnastics, we had a good time together. We found four butterflies, several red leaves, lots of tall trees, and lots of good conversation. Both kids got to take turns being trail leaders. So I've covered about one eighth of the sixty trails. Only 59 and 7/8 left!
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