“Mommy, I love our hikes because it give us time to talk”

 

My son looked up at me as we walked down a trail at Chippokes State Park. We visited there as part of ‘The Mommy Crazy Idea of Visiting all the Virginia State Parks in 1 Year’. Good News on December 2010 we squeezed in our last park. Yet that quote from my son (then just 5) reminds me that the most special time in our life usually happen without a television and most of the time outdoors. Since then we still go to the state parks, but now we tend to stick to the ones closer to home. Most of the time we go as a family to walk the dogs or go to some of the programs the parks offer. 

 

A trail that is lined with beautiful spanish moss at First Landing State Park

 

This is not a romantic love story, but a story about the type of love only a family can have. The funny, crazy, does not always make any sense to anybody else love that holds a family together. On our walks I see the adults my kids will become. Sharing their water or there snack with a sibling because the other one drop theirs. Telling us about school, their friends, or just whatever idea pops in their head.  Watching these wondrous creatures run along the trails looking at rocks and trees and asking us what type they are (by the way I cannot tell an oak from a maple). These walks also gives my husband and me a chance to talk and enjoy our lives without worrying about whether the house is clean or the bills are paid.

 

The parks have becomes some much a part of our lives that when you ask the kids what they want to do for their birthday at least one of them if not all three announce they want to go camping. We will continue going to the State Parks to make memories of silly stories made up along the trails, hidden treasures (geocaching), birds and creatures, water, and life. Of kids jumping in puddles and covered in mud, dogs bouncing around, and mommy and daddy holding hands.  In the end our love story does not involve weddings or first dates, but of the family time together that turns a simple day into a lasting memory.

 

Nancy Hayes