Greenways: Alleghany Trail

I can't believe the kids start school in six days! We've had such a great summer, and while I am really excited for the kids to move on to third and sixth grade, I'm also a little panicked. Summer cannot be over. I mean, we haven't walked on all the greenways yet. The kids haven't done all the summer enrichment lessons I had planed. We haven't gone to one museum or taken one "field trip". And don't even ask me how the multiplication table memorization is going!



Actually, I've (mostly) come to terms with the fact that not every one of my plans is going to come to fruition. However, in our last few days of summer I would like to finish up a few of the trails we've haven't walked on, mostly so on my map of highlighted trails there are no half-highlighted trails or gaps in already highlighted lines. I know. It's ridiculous. Just know that I know it's ridiculous.

Anyway, today on the Alleghany Trail we had a pretty good time. This is a trail that connects the Middle Crabtree Creek Trail to the North Hills Trail. Nathan and I had actually walked on a little bit of this trail when we were on the North Hills Trail earlier in the summer, so we picked up where we had left off (at least that's how I have chosen to highlight it on my map) and planned to walked south to where Middle Crabtree Creek Trail begins. Sadly, we never actually made it to the start of Middle Crabtree Creek, and I have no idea how close or how far we were. The trail itself was pretty cool with lots of different elements (it was mostly paved, but also included some sidewalks along some residential streets, and a muddy stretch of path along the creek where I got a little worried that we may have gotten lost). But, the day was overcast and rainy, and so after walking for an hour I knew we needed to turn around and go back. The walk back was actually quicker, but it felt twice as long. I think we ended up walking more than 5 miles total. I knew we had walked too far though, when there at the end even I was getting disappointed when we would come around a bend in the trail, only to discover that we were not back at the car yet and still had more to walk. When Noah started comparing it to the Neuse River Trail that we had walked with their Dad I knew I was in trouble! But, we did persevere, and an early lunch at McDonald's seemed to take away some of the kid's discomfort at having to walk so far and so long on this humid, rainy day. I like to think that they would agree, that a long, humid day on the greenways is better than a day at school! I'm really going to miss it when school starts. But, a few less meals and smoothies from McDonald's will probably do us all some good!

Nathan: The Alleghany Trail was very long. We got there at 9:00 am and then walked down into the trail. It was along a river. The trail was in a neighborhood and the houses on the trail were huge. Almost every house had a trampoline. One house had a playset that was grown over with plants and trees and was all rotten and tilted up. That trail took a dip and led us along a giant rock. I wanted to climb it but it was covered with slugs. Then we went up to a highway and walked for 15 minutes along that. Then we turned around and walked back and went into the trail again. Next thing I knew, I found a bamboo walking stick! I took that back with us. When we got to the car I was glad.

Noah: Today we walked on a greenway. There was a river. The river had little fish. We saw a cool red frog. We also saw a tiny frog. We found a bamboo stick. There was a tree stump with baby centipedes on it. We went on a bridge and saw two spiders. We walked a little ways back and saw in a backyard was a cool playset that looked like a pirate ship. We saw a puppy. We walked back. I had a great time on the greenway.