Roxy Ann

We've been having a spate of unseasonably warm, sunny weather. Yesterday, Larkin, Finn and I decided to hike Roxy Ann loop. They were pretty excited, partly because Roxy Ann is visible from our living room and they thought it was pretty cool to be able to just get up and go there.

It's a bit hard to figure out, but using Crazy Google Technology, I think we walked about 3.5 miles. I think that's about as far as the kids want to go at the moment, but I only piggybacked Finn a few times so I think it's a pretty reasonable limit to put on my future hike searches.

A big bonus of this particular hike is that there are LOTS of geocaches in the area. We managed to locate six during our outing-- which is some kind of record for us. This awesome old madrone had one hidden among its roots:

Naturally, we had to spend at least 20 minutes playing here before moving on.

Closer to the peak, we spotted a spectacular oak. The way it was positioned, the bank was falling away from its roots, leaving some exposed. Finn decided he needed to visit them.

It was quite a climb. Here's a shot of the tree and roots so you can better appreciate Finn's admiration:

Larkin and Finn were pretty exhausted by the time we got back to the car-- but, of course, a couple of hours later you certainly couldn't tell by their energy levels that they'd done anything strenuous that day. I'm thrilled that the kids can manage longer walks these days... there are definitely more in our near future.