Friday in the Park With the Kids.

So with today being our first real day of Summertime heat, I decided the last thing I wanted to be doing was hanging inside with the kids.

Do not confuse Canadian summer heat with what Triple T is going through in Chicago - that shit ain't natural, and I'm sure that the extreme heat they are feeling is just because there is possibly a portal to Hell on Lower Wacker Drive. (That's a road in Chi-town, right? I got it from the Blues Brothers.)

At first I thought I'd take them to the beach - sun, sand, possible views of bikini-clad bodies (there ain't nothing wrong with that) - but the thought of all the shit you have to bring to the beach, plus the fact that you have to lug it all there and back, put a kibosh on that idea. I'm doing yard work tomorrow, so packing crap around today was not in the plans.

I took them to the trails instead.

We went for a hike/walk on the Canyon View Trail - it's a 6km loop over and around the Campbell River - it's at the far end of town, about 20 minutes from my house. We grabbed a bottle of water and headed on our way.

The trail isn't actually red - that's just my awesome MSPaint skills.

I figured the kids wouldn't do the whole thing - that they would tire out and want to quit after the first big set of stairs, but they persevered, (there are benches occasionally) and did the whole thing.

As you can see, there are stairs and stairs and hills and hills. The bench was a welcome relief to them.

The Boys main plan was to make it to the steel bridge over the canyon. The goal? To drop rocks, of course. C'mon - they're six and nine - throwing rocks is in their nature.

 

The first picture is the bridge - my youngest is holding a rock up. I know it looks like he is giving you the finger, but trust me, it's a rock. The other two are the view from the bridge looking up and then down the canyon. It's pretty high up, and I'll admit, the rocks make a pretty loud and significant splash when dropped from that height.

 

We then crossed over the dam (that's the swirling water from the outflow) and headed back towards the car. The trail on this side of the canyon is way lower than the other side, so the sound of rushing water is beside you all the way. I'm pretty sure that's why the Boys had to stop and pee a couple of times, and I'm definitely sure they'd be pissed if they knew I posted about it.

On the way back, there was a sandbank alongside the river (you can't see the trees growing out of it, but they are there) and people had carved their initials into the hard, compacted sand. We decided to go along with the flow and etch ours there as well.

(At least I'm pretty sure it was people's initals - it could be the remnants of some sort of Satanic ritual - I may just have inadvertently sold the Boys souls. I guess they can deal with it when they turn 18.)

I guess the desecration of nature's beauty should shock me, but I was just happy to see that none of the words scribbled there were curses or slang for genitallia - having to explain to my six-year-old why someone carved "cock" into the sand would have taken the magic out of the moment.

Since we were almost back at the car, the Boys thought we should have a sit down and just chill for a second. We sat on this bench:

and enjoyed this view:

Until they realized that 3 guys sitting on a flower-covered bench looking at the river isn't the coolest thing in the world. After quickly getting up and talking about how much we all love Hockey, we made it back to the car.

All in all, it took us an hour and a half to walk the 6km. The runner in me groaned at how slow we were, but the Dad in me had a great fucking time.









Later.

...and before anyone asks - no, we did not see any Moose.