SUUSI report, day 4.
Jul. 20th, 2006 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaTuesday was a peaceful day; Wednesday was anything but.
I had signed myself and Alex up for a morning hike to a place called Poverty Creek. She never took to the backpack carrier I'd intended to use, so my plan was to wear her on my hip in the Maya Wrap. That worried me a bit - my balance isn't great at the best of time, and wearing Alex on my hip tends to throw me off a little. I was also worried that we would slow the rest of the hikers down, or that Alex would be fussy, obstinate, and annoying. But I reminded myself firmly that people who signed up for a hike rated for ages 0+ would be expecting to deal with little kids.
The final group included one other toddler, a preschooler, a young teenager, and ten adults, plus the hike leader - a cheerful, bearded guy with a thick Virginia accent and feathers in his hat. He gave us a dryly funny safety lecture ("A couple of years ago, a lady dropped her camera in the creek, and then she wrote on her evaluation form that the trip leader should warn that cameras might get wet. So: the water in the creek is wet.") and we all piled into a 15-passenger van and headed up into the mountains. After a half-hour's drive down a bumpy Forest Service road, during which I regretted having said that I didn't get carsick, we arrived at an unmarked trailhead.
Alex protested as I slid her into the sling, but quickly settled down as we walked along the trail, which wound through second-growth forest and little meadow glades with tall grasses. There were butterflies everywhere, some as large as the palm of my hand. (The city-raised preschooler, seeing three butterflies perched motionless in the sun: "Are those real?") We crossed the creek a couple of times, plus a number of boggy stretches. I had thought that we were just doing a circut hike, but after we'd gone about 3/4 of a mile, we came out into a place in the woods where the creek was very broad and shallow, dotted with big rocks. The trip leader announced that we'd be staying there for about half an hour to wade and play in the water.
It was beautiful. The icy water was invigorating and refreshing to our feet, and a light breeze cooled our faces. Butterflies and dragonflies darted back and forth across the creek. The children waded and splashed. Alex, who has been frenetic all week, settled into a focused, intent calm, crouching in a shallow pool and picking stones out of the water one by one. I sat next to her and let my mind empty out, just focusing on my immediate sensory environment. It was beautiful.
Eventually (with great difficulty) we hauled the children out and got them into dry clothes. Alex had hiked the last couple hundred yards before our stop by herself, and was highly indignant about being back in the sling - but since her soaked shoes had to come off, there was no alternative. One final amazing surprise just before we left the creek: the teenager in our group found a perfectly-preserved dead luna moth lying on a rock. I had never seen one before. We all admired it for a few minutes, and then he left it on the rock "because it's part of the ecosystem." I love UU kids.
As soon as we got in the van to go home, Alex fell asleep. She continued to sleep as I called Michael to ask him to meet us, as I lifted her out of the carseat and put her in the stroller, as we wheeled her back to the room, and as Michael and I went in turn to have our lunches. My father showed up to accompany me to lunch. He's so excited by everything he's doing! The theme talk was one of the best sermons he'd ever heard. He'd sat next to the most fascinating person at breakfast. His morning workshop was so exciting that he'd lost control and talked way too much. He wondered what Mom would think of this. (Me: "Dad, she'd hate it." Dad, sadly: "She would probably hate it.")
When Alex woke up, she had missed her lunch. We took her over to the nursery and gave her lunch there, and then wandered around playing while Michael took a nap. She learned how to blow soap bubbles, although it was an uphill battle - she kept wanting to put the wand right into her mouth. Late in the afternoon, the SUUSI folks gathered for "Community Sun Dance," an anarchic collection of fun activities on the quad. A large drum circle formed, and people danced - including Alex, who hadn't really done more than bob her head to music before. We wandered around enjoying the cooling afternoon and the company for a while, and then headed back to the dorm for dinner with friends.
They had cooked an entire elaborate meal in one of the godawful dorm kitchens: lasagna, salad with fresh, unpasteurized goat cheese, homemade bread and pie from the farmer's market, and the special standout: cold pineapple-cucumber soup. Wow. We stayed eating and talking with them (food, church gossip, kids, SUUSI, research, math, scandalous behavior of people we don't know) until Alex's drooping eyelids were impossible to ignore, and then took her down to bed.
I had been torn all day about how I wanted to spend the evening. The concert performer was Joe Jencks, and I'd loved hearing him sing at worship services. And yet there was also a beer tasting I'd wanted to go to since we registered: "Beers from SUUSI's backyard." I finally decided on the beer tasting, and was not disappointed. We tasted eighteen microbrews from across the southeast, none of which I'd ever had before. My favorites were a Duck-Rabbit milk stout and a New Orleans beer called Purple Haze, although I confess that by the end of the tasting both my capacity and my ability to make fine judgments were suffering.
Afterward I came back to the suite and hung out in the living room until midnight, chatting with Michael and one of our suitemates. Who lives in DC! There could be visiting.
I had signed myself and Alex up for a morning hike to a place called Poverty Creek. She never took to the backpack carrier I'd intended to use, so my plan was to wear her on my hip in the Maya Wrap. That worried me a bit - my balance isn't great at the best of time, and wearing Alex on my hip tends to throw me off a little. I was also worried that we would slow the rest of the hikers down, or that Alex would be fussy, obstinate, and annoying. But I reminded myself firmly that people who signed up for a hike rated for ages 0+ would be expecting to deal with little kids.
The final group included one other toddler, a preschooler, a young teenager, and ten adults, plus the hike leader - a cheerful, bearded guy with a thick Virginia accent and feathers in his hat. He gave us a dryly funny safety lecture ("A couple of years ago, a lady dropped her camera in the creek, and then she wrote on her evaluation form that the trip leader should warn that cameras might get wet. So: the water in the creek is wet.") and we all piled into a 15-passenger van and headed up into the mountains. After a half-hour's drive down a bumpy Forest Service road, during which I regretted having said that I didn't get carsick, we arrived at an unmarked trailhead.
Alex protested as I slid her into the sling, but quickly settled down as we walked along the trail, which wound through second-growth forest and little meadow glades with tall grasses. There were butterflies everywhere, some as large as the palm of my hand. (The city-raised preschooler, seeing three butterflies perched motionless in the sun: "Are those real?") We crossed the creek a couple of times, plus a number of boggy stretches. I had thought that we were just doing a circut hike, but after we'd gone about 3/4 of a mile, we came out into a place in the woods where the creek was very broad and shallow, dotted with big rocks. The trip leader announced that we'd be staying there for about half an hour to wade and play in the water.
It was beautiful. The icy water was invigorating and refreshing to our feet, and a light breeze cooled our faces. Butterflies and dragonflies darted back and forth across the creek. The children waded and splashed. Alex, who has been frenetic all week, settled into a focused, intent calm, crouching in a shallow pool and picking stones out of the water one by one. I sat next to her and let my mind empty out, just focusing on my immediate sensory environment. It was beautiful.
Eventually (with great difficulty) we hauled the children out and got them into dry clothes. Alex had hiked the last couple hundred yards before our stop by herself, and was highly indignant about being back in the sling - but since her soaked shoes had to come off, there was no alternative. One final amazing surprise just before we left the creek: the teenager in our group found a perfectly-preserved dead luna moth lying on a rock. I had never seen one before. We all admired it for a few minutes, and then he left it on the rock "because it's part of the ecosystem." I love UU kids.
As soon as we got in the van to go home, Alex fell asleep. She continued to sleep as I called Michael to ask him to meet us, as I lifted her out of the carseat and put her in the stroller, as we wheeled her back to the room, and as Michael and I went in turn to have our lunches. My father showed up to accompany me to lunch. He's so excited by everything he's doing! The theme talk was one of the best sermons he'd ever heard. He'd sat next to the most fascinating person at breakfast. His morning workshop was so exciting that he'd lost control and talked way too much. He wondered what Mom would think of this. (Me: "Dad, she'd hate it." Dad, sadly: "She would probably hate it.")
When Alex woke up, she had missed her lunch. We took her over to the nursery and gave her lunch there, and then wandered around playing while Michael took a nap. She learned how to blow soap bubbles, although it was an uphill battle - she kept wanting to put the wand right into her mouth. Late in the afternoon, the SUUSI folks gathered for "Community Sun Dance," an anarchic collection of fun activities on the quad. A large drum circle formed, and people danced - including Alex, who hadn't really done more than bob her head to music before. We wandered around enjoying the cooling afternoon and the company for a while, and then headed back to the dorm for dinner with friends.
They had cooked an entire elaborate meal in one of the godawful dorm kitchens: lasagna, salad with fresh, unpasteurized goat cheese, homemade bread and pie from the farmer's market, and the special standout: cold pineapple-cucumber soup. Wow. We stayed eating and talking with them (food, church gossip, kids, SUUSI, research, math, scandalous behavior of people we don't know) until Alex's drooping eyelids were impossible to ignore, and then took her down to bed.
I had been torn all day about how I wanted to spend the evening. The concert performer was Joe Jencks, and I'd loved hearing him sing at worship services. And yet there was also a beer tasting I'd wanted to go to since we registered: "Beers from SUUSI's backyard." I finally decided on the beer tasting, and was not disappointed. We tasted eighteen microbrews from across the southeast, none of which I'd ever had before. My favorites were a Duck-Rabbit milk stout and a New Orleans beer called Purple Haze, although I confess that by the end of the tasting both my capacity and my ability to make fine judgments were suffering.
Afterward I came back to the suite and hung out in the living room until midnight, chatting with Michael and one of our suitemates. Who lives in DC! There could be visiting.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-07-20 07:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-20 08:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 03:04 pm (UTC)And I definitely needed a hand from the trip leader when we crossed the creek from rock to rock, just to steady my balance. But I was surprised at how well it went. I hadn't worn her on my hip for anything but folk dancing (where you can sit down any time you want) for a long time.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-20 09:55 pm (UTC)-J
no subject
Date: 2006-07-21 01:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 03:00 pm (UTC)