Fascination

We went for a hike around a lake yesterday.  It was a beautiful day and the lake was crystal clear.  The hike was fairly easy, but it was all around the lake so once we began we had to see it through.

Haley is not a bad hiker, but her lack of depth perception makes it hard for her to see obstacles in her path.  The dappled shadows are especially hard for her because I would imagine that what she can see suddenly goes away. The trail was too narrow to walk beside her most of the way so I had her in front of me and I was supporting her arm and trying to look around her to see what she might encounter.

She would come to a complete stop whenever she encountered shade or what she could tell was a steep downhill slope.  She kicked a few big rocks and tripped on a few tree roots, but for the most part she did really well.  It was nice that we could see the lake from the trail all the way around because we knew how much further we had to go. 

Haley's Dad and Big Sis had led the way and I knew that they would made it all the way around the lake in about half the time that we would.  Haley and I trudged along slowly picking our way and stopping every once in a while to admire the view.  Grandma C and her friend Don were behind us stopping frequently to take pictures. 

About halfway around the lake there was a nice bench that we decided to take advantage of.  After a little rest we went on. We were walking along talking about the lunch that we had packed when the trail took a turn to the right away from the lake and Haley started heading up it.  I looked ahead and saw what she had seen. 

She saw picnic tables.  They were the same picnic tables that we saw when we first arrived at the lake.  We had talked about coming back to those picnic tables for our lunch after we had hiked the trail around the lake.  I knew that we had a ways to go to get back to the other end of the lake, but my daughter had decided that she was done.  I tried to call her Dad on his cell phone, but my cell phone had died.  Don said he would complete the trail and meet up with Haley's Dad and sister.  So we sat down at the picnic tables to wait.

Some flies decided to join us.  Haley was fascinated by the flies.  When they would land on her arm instead of jumping and screaming like a lot of other kids would do she just studied them.  It got to the point where they would just climb all over her.  She was grinning and giggling.  It was fun to watch.