On The Road, Day 15: North Carolina

Day two with Mike and Erin. After we pried the boys away from the video games, Mike took us for a little hike with his daughter and dog. It was an easy hike through the Eno River State Park. At first the kids seemed reluctant to go on another walk. They just wanted to see more cousins and get out of the car for a few days. As we walked they got more into the idea of hiking through the woods, looking at the funny colored mushrooms and big trees. The hiking path lead us right to a really cool suspension bridge to walk across. All three of the kids thought it was the kind of bridge that Indian Jones would cross while trying to find some buried artifact from an ancient people. They bounded across the bridge making it bounce as they hummed the Indian Jones theme song. We walked down to a wide stream from the other side of the bridge, without any hesitation all of the kids stepped eagerly into the cool stream flowing around the smooth rocks. The dog didn’t know which way to go, all four of the kids were in different directions exploring their own path through the water. The dog whimpered as she tried to herd the kids together. The boys started to wander around the bend in the stream, so everyone followed. The water wasn’t running fast but it did get deep enough for them to pretend to swim. We had to get out of the big stream when we found a snake tucked around the tree roots on the streams edge. As we hiked back to the other side we stopped for a few pictures on the bridge and then walked back to the picnic tables to have lunch. We found some fresh blueberries on a bush, by the park building, to go with our lunch. The kids had a good time on their hike hundreds of feet over raging river on a rickety old bridge and then wrestling a giant boa constrictor before escaping the poison darts of the native people that were hidden in the woods. After lunch we went back to Mike and Erin’s to play dress up and Xbox while mommy and daddy packed up the car to go to Washington DC. It was a long late drive in the rain with the engine light screaming at us that the oil needed to be changed. So with the engine saying it was -39% we found the closest Honda dealership and stopped for the night.