Technically, we were out to snowshoe with Scott, Josie, Ken, Kristin, and Brooklyn. However, the cold temperature took its toll on little Brooklyn (about Henry's age, I think) and everybody but Josie turned back. She insisted she wasn't sticking with me and the kids out of some sense of responsibility for prompting the trip. I'm still not sure I really believe that.
Gold Creek is a good old, easy trip. It's a short almost perfectly flat road walk to Gold Creek Pond. On a good day the views are amazing. We've been there many times. The worst trips always seem to be when the sky is clear and it's really cold.
Hmm... was that today? Kind of. It was really chilly, slight wind, snowing just a bit, but enough sun to tempt us to continue.
The girls took turns riding in the Incredible Pulk and walking. Lilly enjoyed laying down in the middle of the road to make snow angels. Henry was happy even though he was just riding.
At the pond we had lunch and Henry started to lose it. It was more exposed and the wind cut through everything he had on. We didn't stay long. On the way back I tried to get Lilly to sit in the back of the Incredible Pulk... backward. She did, for a little bit, but then decided it wasn't ladylike. Instead she wanted to ride on my shoulders.
That worked great for as far as I could manage to be moving all three kids at the same time, but eventually had to shrug her off. Instead of getting both girls into the Incredible Pulk they chose to ride in Josie's red sled. Without a harness she looped the rope around my poles and pulled it from between her legs. It didn't look comfy, but seemed to work and we made much better time back to the car.
Since the rest of the group had headed back to North Bend already I drove Josie back to meet her family at Rhodie's for BBQ. I skipped BBQ and headed home for naps and a squished PBJ. Mmm... tasty.
Totals are the usual 1.5 miles and 100 feet of gain... but that's just hearsay since I didn't bother with the GPS.
(And next time I try to drag little kids out we'll just go to the Hyak sledding hills.)
Bonus: Josie has a video of me making strange sounds while pulling the kids on flickr.
