End of Summer Hike

Well, it's our last week of summer vacation, so we decided to try to enjoy it to its fullest by going for one last hike at Audubon.

We hiked all the way to the Secret Door! It's a long hike for little legs, so the kids don't usually go there in school until the end of the school year, once everybody has developed their endurance. So I wasn't sure we would make it all the way there with Claire, but I figured we could always turn around if we needed to. We didn't need to! She had a few shoe issues towards the middle of the hike that made her a little cranky, but other than that, it was no sweat for her.

I'm not sure what the Secret Door is, exactly. Maybe a relic leftover from when the nature center used to be a farm? It's not even on the border of the nature center property—you can open it up and walk right through, continuing down the path to Solitude Marsh. All I know is, the kids always love going there and finding the "secret." I had never been there myself, but had heard enough about it from Elsa to be curious about it.

We also did a little geocaching while we were out there, and found another well-hidden cache. Plus we visited Solitude Marsh. It was lots of fun. It's so nice to actually be able to go for hikes now—up until this summer, it really wasn't possible with Claire. She's getting to be such a big girl!