Pooh Sticks

Our last hike didn't start out how we had anticipated. We had great plans of hiking a kid-friendly trail at Elmore State Park and we'd been eyeing the lookout tower gleaming in the sun as we approached the mountain from the back side. We told the girls about the incredible view from the tower and to be careful climbing up the many stairs to the tower's top.

When we pulled into the check-in booth at the park, the attendant asked for our dog's rabies tags. Well, our dog doesn't wear her tags since they fall off when she does her crazy swimming in the lake. We'd simply call the vet as the shots were up-to-date. Only it was Sunday. No fire tower today girls.

Surprisingly, no one complained. We left the park and ventured off to find another hike. I had lived in the area in my single days and vaguely remembered a hike nearby. I asked for directions at the gas station and we were on our way.

By the time we got to this trail head, it was approaching lunch time. Julia got into the snacks and water bottle in her backpack about three steps up the trail. Rather than work our way up to a summit, we opted to follow a snowmobile trail. We went out a half hour and turned around and came back. The terrain was easy, we had the trail to ourselves, and our dog enjoyed jumping in and out of the stream without her dog tags.

The girls decided to play "Pooh Sticks," a game they learned from there favorite story, where you simply drop your sticks from one side of the bridge and see whose gets downstream on the other side of the bridge first. With less worry about how far we were going, we could afford a little more time for entertainment.