Fort Mountain was our address this weekend. The “Trading Post” had wifi, but in the so-called “cottages” I could barely squeak an Edge connection on my phone. More on our weekend later this week….
As we were leaving, my parents pulled up to the cottage with a plan. Not quite fully formed, but a plan. We headed out (in three cars — which I think we could have reduced by at least one of maybe even two for some of the trip) to a really remote lake, Peeple’s Lake.
The mission was to find a geocache, but not just that, the mission of the cache was to pick up a couple bags of trash. As we parked — not so easy amongst the trailers for the ATVs — we spotted way more poison ivy than trash. As we walked towards the trash, we left the poison ivy (which I am now a pro at spotting) and found lots of dwarf iris plants, though not the orange and purple ones we saw at Fort Mountain.
The geocache was found by my dad who can spot them a mile away. The girls found treasures. I took photos. I got SO close to a snake and didn’t realize it until Camille was a foot away from it, then I panicked. I thought it was a water moccasin; my dad said it wasn’t. We continued on, seeing less innocuous forms of wildlife, until I found a big tick on Chloe’s cheek.
Argh! If I show my kids that nature terrifies me, how are they not going to be nervous?? Chloe is such a naturalist, I don’t think I’ve scared her from venturing out…. Here’s my dad with the trash that we carted out …!
