Grandpa Tom was up for a visit and Jacqueline had to work. So he and I took the kids out to the Coal Pits Wash area. I wanted to see what Zyla could do on a mostly flat trail. She has never been a very ambitious hiker as there are just so many different things to enjoy and really what is the purpose of going farther anyway. She is seeing new scenery everywhere. I took a risk by only taking the one baby backpack for Conrad. She started out great and even wore her backpack. We were moving along quite well for the first 1/2 mile. Then she got semi-distracted and disinterested.
That is when I pulled out my secret weapon, some bunny crackers. I kept these in my pocket and Conrad and I led the way. Grandpa was behind her making sure she did not get too far behind. When she would get hungry for bunny crackers, she would suddenly spring ahead and come get one bunny cracker from me out of my pocket. Then it was back to just moseying along until another round of bunny crackers. This kept us moving along. We nearly made it to campsite #6, but at that point we finally got some shade from some rocks near us and decided to pull out Conrad and get a larger snack then bunny crackers. At this point we were a mile and a half in and just hopeful that Zyla could continue it for the next mile and a half back. She did fantastic on the way back. She really got excited about the hills. There really are not many out in the Coalpits area, but Zyla really enjoyed them.
They were only there when the trail crossed a wash. On the way down, she would hold one of our hands, but on the way up she would want to do it herself. So here was my little girl in a dress scrambling up these steep little hills. It was so cute and it made her daddy pretty proud. We seemed to make good progress all the way back and by lunch time we were out and back to the trailhead. I felt like we had maxed out what Zyla was capable of doing on her own and now it was back home for the afternoon nap.
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