When I start planning an adventure I tend to hope for Type 1 fun, but know there will likely be a measure of Type 2 fun as well. After all these years of being too hot or too cold, slogging through the rain and wet snow, and waking up the next day full of aches and pains I expect some level of discomfort. In fact, at the same time I'm grimacing I'm loving it.
It's fair to say this is not normal.
Normal people want an adventure to be just a wee bit of adventure and mostly just non-stop fun. That poses a bit of a problem for me because I'm happy to report the kids are mostly normal. They don't want to bump up against their limits on a Tuesday night. They just want to go for a walk in the snow.
My strategy lately has been to have a whole menu of adventure options to lay out before the normals. If it were up to me, I'd choose the biggest adventure, but it's not up to me. Instead, we pick something that seems like fun. And the option to pick a different option is always available to us when we're outside.
All that being said...
Lilly and I headed out just a bit before dark with the goal of... getting outside. I had dreams of a loop connecting climber's trails, but no. Instead, we broke trail through feet deep snow to gain the old railroad trestle turned cross-state trail. Wading through the snow was hard enough for the evening so we followed the mostly level trail.
Railroad grades aren't super fun to explore, but they are easy to walk. Thankfully, this trail crosses several high trestles. It was just light enough for us to see the creeks way down below. At least for the first trestle. The light was fading quickly. By the time we got to the last trestle it was pitch black. Even in the deep snow and darkness, we were able to find the steep trail down to the creek and out to the road.
Lilly had chosen one of the more mellow options, though not the mellowest. I stuck the other options in my back pocket for another day. Together, we had a great evening wandering about in the snow.
