Nathan is my eagle-eyed child. That kid can spot a baby turtle with a shell the size of a 50 cent piece, camouflaged and peaking out from under a leaf, from 15 feet away. He can pick out deer eating corn at the edge of the woods, at dusk, from 100 feet away in a car traveling 65 miles an hour. He can identify birds of all types and sizes, while I am typically the one saying, "What? Where?" as we speed by the field, or as the turtle dips down under the water and swims away. But today, I got him! As we started down the Bent Creek Trail this morning I looked at the little stream that was running along the paved trail, and spotted a snake sitting on a rock. I have no idea what kind it was, but it was about 3 feet long, grey with reddish diamonds, and it looked like it had just eaten. After it noticed we were watching it, it slipped off the rock it was lying on and swam away in the water, its eyes on us. Creepy!
Today's Greenways adventure was great. We started on the Bent Creek Trail, which is a paved trail that cuts through several neighborhoods in North Raleigh. One of the cool things about this Greenway was that even though it's right through a neighborhood, but it feels like you're out in the middle of nowhere. Since it's a path instead of a loop around a lake you're never quite sure where you are. You walk a little ways, and then you get to a tunnel that goes under a busy road that you drive on all the time, and you hear the traffic and the bustle of the city. Then you walk a little bit more, and all you can hear is the wind in the trees, the water running over the rocks, the occassional jogger, or biker. Oh, and the kids talking . . . .
Nathan: Today we walked on a paved trail through the woods. When we first started raindrops fell from the leaves of the trees. We saw a snake and some butterflies. We went in a tunnel under the highway. It was dark and scary. For a snack we ate sunflower seeds. On this trail there was a white pipe and me and Noah walked on it. The pipe went through the woods. After that we walked on a trail in the woods. I found the quickest exit. There were nasty sewage pipes. I would love to go back.
Noah: Today we went on our second Greenway. We saw a snake. It was red. The Greenway was like a rain forest. There was a river and we threw rocks in the river. There was a sewage pipe that we walked on. We came through a tunnel. Then we came through a tunnel. Then we went home. I had fun.
We ended up walking for about 2 hours, and it was steamy and hot! I had originally wanted to walk just the Bent Creek Trail and the Sawmill Trail, but the Sawmill Trail was unpaved, and while it connected to the Bent Creek Trail, it was unmarked, so we passed it by without noticing on our way down the trail. And then since we were already there, I pushed the kids on to the Shelly Lake Trail (the portion that leads to Optimist Park). When we turned around to walk back to the start of the Bent Creek Trail and the car, and we saw the unpaved trail leading off into the woods, and decided to walk on that to see where it lead. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), after about 15 minutes on the muddy, unpaved trail running along the creek, Noah had had about enough, and so we turned back to paved trail, and back to our car. I treated them to McDonald's since it was lunch time and they had walked a long way (about 5 miles?!?) and we were pretty sweaty and tired. Gotta end on a high note with them wanting to come back for more!
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