A hike to remember

Last weekend my cousin Kerry and her boyfriend visited beautiful California for a quick weekend getaway.  My aunt put together a hike and so Chris, the boys, and I could visit with everyone. We were excited to be able to use our Osprey packs again since it has been awhile since we have done any real hiking with the boys (actually, Kathy and I were the last to use them for a hike together a couple of months ago while Chris slaved away at his desk). 

Doing these kinds of outings is getting easier.  First, the boys are getting up earlier these days.  Although painful for this mom, it does mean that we can get out of the house in a more timely fashion leaving more time for adventures. In fact, I surprised both of my aunts and several friends this month by being on time for our play dates.  [Gold sticker for this mom!]  Second, although nap time is still very important,  the boys are more resilient and can adapt if we push nap time back an hour or two. This allows us to be out about bout longer and (as long as we are doing something fun) not to have to worry about meltdowns or our kid passing out.  I'm not ready for naps to end, don't get me wrong, but for these intermittent adventures, it is nice that we have some wiggle room before the kids pass out.

Kathy suggested we hike in the Marin Headlands, someplace I had never spent any time. Kathy had a hike in mind but we had a little trouble finding the trail head.  Instead, we opted to start someplace new to all of us. The trail was named "coastal trail" so we figured there would be water and likely a beach.  What could be bad?

We started out descending for about two miles, something that I did not think much about on fresh legs and with all the chatter going on.  It was great catching up with my cousin, meeting her boyfriend, and catching up with Kathy and Sam after the holidays.  When we got to the bottom, there was neither a beach, nor a scenic view, instead there was a busy street, a horse farm, and a "path less traveled" that cut straight back uphill.  In our minds, this uphill path was the best choice because it was going back in the direction we thought the water should be.  We walked up the hill, Brady urging me to go forward my swinging his legs into my side, and when we got to the top we found some nice views, and in the distance, we spotted a black sand beach that looked like a perfect spot to let the boys get out and play.

We walked toward the beach along a road and got to where the decent started.  It was primarily sand and stairs all the way down, and I was impressed at how hard it was to walk downhill with 35+ lbs on your back.  Chris stayed close so I could grab his shoulder as needed and together we got to the bottom (without thinking too much about having to go back up ;)

We played on the beach, enjoyed the uniqueness of the black sand, and noticed that this beach had something else special about it.  What clued us in first was when we thought we saw a distant naked woman doing yoga.  We debated a bit as to whether or not she was just in a flesh color bikini, but when a shirtless man walked down the stairs, walked past our group, and took off his pants about 20 yards away from us, we got our answer.  We were sitting on a nude beach and we had no idea.  The best part was when naked man walked back past us, Troy, our four legged hiking partner, started to chase him and Chris ran after Troy, not knowing the guy was naked.  It was not until later that he found out he was chasing a naked man and a dog.

After ample play time and site seeing, we packed up and decided to head back to our cars.  Since we had taken kind of a circuitous route to the beach, we were not entirely sure where our cars were.  We figured that we had to hike to the top of the stairs, the walk slightly uphill and around the next bend and that would be where our cars were.

Walking those stairs was a true workout but it was not as bad as I thought it would be.  We reconnected our hiking group at the top, the started on the last leg to the car.  When we got around the bend that should have been hiding our car, unfortunately we did not find our cars.  Instead, we found a huge hill, made up of several switchbacks.  After consulting phones for maps and ensuring that *all* we had to do was climb this huge hill in order to find our cars we stripped down to lesser clothing (not as little as was being worn by some people on the beach mind you), drank some water, and pushed ahead.  The hill was tremendous but what made it climbable (aside from the fact that we had to get home of course) was that Brody sang to Chris the whole way up the hill.  I could only hear snippets as the wind carried his voice back, but I could hear him singing the whole time. It was adorable!  Brady enjoyed yelling "GO" as loud as he could and, towards the top, smacking me in the head.  In case you were wondering, being smacked in the head while you walk uphill is not ideal.

When we got to the top, we were rewarded with a spectacular view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the city.  It was beautiful and well worth the effort.  Also, we found a sign that confirmed that we had just carried or 35ish lb, 2 year old children up 18% grade, a feat that I will not soon forget.  I will smile about this fact until we beat it with a bigger, badder hill climb! 

We had a great time on our adventure.  It was wonderful to see my cousin whom I have not seen in a long time.  I keep up with her on Instagram so I kind of feel like I have a window into her life, and visa versa, but it was great to be able to spend some facetime with her (ha, Silicon Valley joke).  We really had fun on this family outing.  The only thing that made it better was the sweet reward we treated ourselves to at the end!  Come back soon cousin Kerry (and bring your siblings!!)! 

Side note: I cannot say enough good things about the Osprey packs we wore.  The boys were on our backs for about 3 hours and I never felt a bit uncomfortable.  The packs made it easy to do this kind of things with toddlers, I am sold!