Fall Bike Trip

The leaves are just starting to color up and we've had a few nice days, so we've been out biking!

We have a nice set of bike trails near us, and parts of the trail are punctuated by exercise equipment- like a playground for grown ups!

It's taken me a long time (like 21 years) to have every single person in the family have a working bike, a fitting helmet, and the ability to ride...

And that includes me!

I hadn't been on a bike in 30 years, but, it turns out, it's just like riding a bicycle.  It being actually riding a bicycle.

Actually being out on bikes, going on adventures with my kids is everything I always dreamed it would be.

Except for the part about feeling like my legs will fall off!

Water Hiking

 Water hiking is just hiking, but your trail is a shallow stream bed.

This was my first time trying it with kids, but it was so fun,  I'm sure it won't be the last!

There are two important rules in water hiking:  wear shoes that are ok with water (old sneakers, actual water shoes, or waterproof sandals are fine), and don't step anywhere you can't see the bottom!

 This particular stream is Paint Branch, a little above where it joins Indian Creek to become the North East Branch of the Anacostia River.

I had actually planned to go downstream to the stream joining, but we had had rain the day before, so the water was just cloudy enough that it was hard to see the bottom... so we went upstream instead!

Knee deep is about as deep as we want to hike.



It's been in the 90s, so it was lovely to hike along in cool water!



And we found lots of interesting rocks, including this potato shaped one we brought back for the museum.


It helps that our local streams are rocky and sandy, I wouldn't try this with muddy bottomed streams.


As a bonus, we wandered into a butterfly party!

Lots of little checkerspot butterflies and this beautiful swallowtail, all drinking from the sand.