Heather's been asking to go camping for a few weeks now (I had mentioned the possibility at some point, which she latched on to. She knows all about camping from an episode of Bubble Guppies. She'll talk about having a tent and sleeping bags and a campfire and roasting marshmallows...). We are planning on going camping in a couple of weeks, but I mentioned to her we could go hiking sometime too. And we talked about her riding in the child-carrier backpack.
So last weekend I got it out and we went walking around the neighborhood for a while. Then she became slightly obsessed with going hiking. So I said we'd go hiking this weekend. Sadly, that promise was made before we knew it was going to be over 100 degrees this weekend. Regardless, she was super excited to go hiking today, so I looked for some place shady that might be a little cooler. We ended up at Redwood Regional Park on the edge of Oakland. It was probably about 10 degrees cooler than Livermore, which was at least something and there was a lot of shade for most of the trail.
We picked up some sandwiches and headed off for adventure. At the parking lot for the trail-head (which was packed) we ate our lunch. Jess, not being one for hiking what with her knees not being in very good shape, opted for sitting in the shade at the trail-head reading. Heather and I packed up and began our trek.
We hiked just about 2.5 miles. Heather was in the backpack somewhere from 1/2 to 2/3 of the hiking. She loved it, though she was pretty worn out by the end (and so was I). I had her on my back and the CamelBak on my front full of water and snacks.
On the way home we went to Chick-fil-A since none of us had enough energy left to think about making dinner. Hopefully the next time we go hiking it won't be quite so hot.
