[at-l] trip report 6-28-02

[Watuwando2@cs.com (Watuwando2@cs.com)]

It was a beautiful day Thursday morning as the boys and I headed out early to 
do the 10.1 mile Three Lakes Trail ( I only found 2 lakes) in Morgan/Monroe 
State Forest. This was our 'trial' hike before heading out to the Knobstone 
trail next week.

Our first encounter of wildlife was dropped off at daycare before we left.

As we were driving there, Nicholas (the 12 yr. old) already started 
complaining that he was tired (this is a bad sign). He carried an almost full 
pack, I carried a daypack and Patrick (14 yr. old) carried nothing, just in 
case. This was his strategy. Mine was to carry the food.... have food, kids 
will follow!

As we were driving there, I was trying to remember everything everyone had 
suggested. I started my mantra: sensawanda, sensawanda... then I added 
....patience, sensawanda, patience....well, you get the idea. :)

Shortly after we started the trail we came across the creek! Put me in a 
creek bed in the middle of Indiana and I sure don't have to chant sensawanda! 
I love looking for geodes and crinoids! Here I am standing in the middle of 
the creek and the boys just staring at me like I was nuts! Oh well. I was 
having fun!

Nicholas' complaining slowly increased as we went. He mentioned that it would 
be nice if we could put pads on the straps of the backpack. This is a brand 
new backpack with really thick pads on it. I told him he just wasn't used to 
carrying a load on his shoulders, it was ok to hurt and it was ok to be 
tired. 

At one break he took the pack off but when we started up again he didn't 
buckle it! He said that he could walk better this way. I said that I didn't 
think so but ok!

Then it happened. He got to the point where he just quit. He was done. We 
were only 1/4 of the way done! Agh! I told him that we were here, either way 
he had to keep walking. He has a habit of quitting when he is frustrated so I 
asked him if he could challenge himself. I told him that if he finished it, 
he would feel pretty good about himself. He didn't agree. :)

Patrick took the pack over and we kept going. We encountered a turtle which 
Nicholas was hoping we would. Ah, life was a tiny bit better!

I told them that if we could get to the first lake we could stop and have 
lunch, swim and rest for about an hour. But! We kept walking and walking and 
walking! No lake! We finally sat down on a rock bed in the creek (creek was 
really low) and had lunch. This helped everyone. Then, Nicholas started 
throwing rocks into a small pool of water that was there, then he started 
catching newts and .....life was much much better!

We started out again and guess what? Just around the bend was the lake! We 
stripped off equipment and jumped in....aaahhhh. Life was really good now! It 
took me a half hour to get him out of the water and dryed off and boots back 
on! Boy was he animated then! Cracking jokes and not draggin his feet.

We had about 2 miles left when the sky opened up and poured. Now, I don't 
mind walking in the rain but when there is lightening right above us, I get a 
little nervous. Nicholas actually hussled and we eventually made it out of 
there.

During the hike we did a couple of Blue Blazes. There was a cemetery there 
that was established in the early 1800's so we went for a stroll through 
there. We saw a lot of deer tracks and a couple of other tracks that we need 
to learn more about. We heard some Rufous-sided Towhee's. I am pretty sure 
that these are of the Eastern variety considering they said 'drink your tea' 
as opposed to the Western variety that rarely comes east of the mississipi 
and says ' drink your pepsi'.

The creek beds were absolutely beautiful! They were mostly shale beds instead 
of dirt. Geodes were abundunt! There were a lot of purple, pink and white 
flowers, ha! I need to learn more about those too.

Nicholas thought that he might be able to walk distance with no pack. So, one 
of my thoughts is that I carry most of the load and would carry the daypack 
with food, pepsi can stoves, etc. Is this a bad idea?

Another one of my thoughts is that we just section hike the KT.

I had a small accident Friday night (ok, it was a little bigger than small) 
so any hiking is postponed for a couple of weeks, any backpacking is 
postponed for at least a few weeks so we have some time to figure out what we 
will end up doing.

But the good news is....as he was going to bed that night, I asked him if he 
was proud of himself. He got a beautiful grin on his face and said YES! So, 
was all of his complaining worth it? I think so.

amy


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