Hike up your skirt

I’ve been trying to take the kids hiking for months. I think my brood is old enough and agile enough to handle a leisurely low grade hike. Of course, I call it “going to a park”. If I call it a hike, they know it will be work.

So I ask the Boyfriend Candidate if he’d like to tag along. When we met he professed to be this great outdoorsman. In the 15 months I’ve known him the most outdoorsy thing he’s done is get drunk on a docked boat.

He says sure, but at 10am it’s too late to go where I wanted to go. Instead we should go over there, where he wants to go. I let the control freak have his way.

On the drive to the trail I say to him that we’ll have to take my trail another time. It has a great little creek where the kids can play. At the end of the trail is an old burned out building, the foundation is still there and they could imagine the structure when it was intact. It was a great place for a picnic. For the most part the trail is covered with huge, shady trees which would keep the boys from complaining about the sun. It was really perfect for an introduction to hiking.

We get to his trial. It is a brown, grassy flat running alongside an ocean bluff. The wind whipping, the sun glaring. It goes miles in each direction without shade, or rocks, or any points of interest. The BC announces this is one of his favorite places to jog, but today, we’ll just fast walk. Lucky us.

Don’t worry. It didn’t happen. I couldn’t subject my kids to that. Forget that, I couldn’t subject myself to that. Once I suggested margaritas and Mexican food the car was quickly turned around.

And hiking up my skirts is still the only hiking I’ve seen him do yet. I can’t complain too much.