State parks are really awesome.
They are all vastly different and our state is full of them!
There are state parks from the beach to the mountains.
Our state parks even offer a booklet called a State Park Passport.
It has information on each park and when you visit you get each page stamped.
They offer prizes for visiting a certain number of parks.
We picked up one on our recent trip!
It was a beautiful day. A little hot but nothing a quick dip in the river couldn't fix.
We took a stroll down the short trail to the river.
The water was cold but it was so fun exploring the river and looking under rocks.
We decided to set out on a few "short" trails before heading back to the car.
I emphasize the word "short" because with our map in hand, that is exactly what we thought they were.
This, however, is where our fun little trip went downhill.
As a mom I feel like other mom's can relate to his little hiccup in our day. We are always the ones planning these experiences and adventures for our family. And if your like me you sort of envision how the day will go. The fun that will be had. The memories made. This magical time.
But....kids whine, dad's get ill, weather may change, or.....
YOU GET LOST!
Yep, LOST!
More on that later!
All the trails are named and we picked two that seemed to circle around back to place where we parked. Perfect route right......
We saw several snakes along the river.
Rocking climbing! Or at least pretending to rock climb!
We saw some HUGE trees on the path and lots of really cool plants. Hensley was shocked to see these huge leaves!
This photo below is where our trip started to take a turn.
We had been walking for about 20 or 30 min on this trail and was fully expecting, that once we crossed this bridge the trail was about half over and we would be back on the way to the car.
Light at the end of the tunnel! We were almost out of the woods!!!!!
Hensley has vowed to never go to a state park ever again (hoping that will change).
I felt awful because it was really all my fault.
However, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger......right?! 🤣
We did a have a fun time before the whole getting lost situation so we will focus on that!!!
Not every adventure is perfect.
Not all plans go as planned.
It is what it is. I'm sure we will look back and laugh at it......
one day!
There are state parks from the beach to the mountains.
Our state parks even offer a booklet called a State Park Passport.
It has information on each park and when you visit you get each page stamped.
They offer prizes for visiting a certain number of parks.
We picked up one on our recent trip!
I saw several friends online who had visited the Eno State Park over the last few month. It's only about a 20 minute drive from us and it looked like a great park. There was a huge river, tons of trails, wildlife, and lots of nature to be seen.
We even decided to let Olivia tag along to get some exercise, and we thought she would love the river!
We took a stroll down the short trail to the river.
The water was cold but it was so fun exploring the river and looking under rocks.
We decided to set out on a few "short" trails before heading back to the car.
I emphasize the word "short" because with our map in hand, that is exactly what we thought they were.
This, however, is where our fun little trip went downhill.
As a mom I feel like other mom's can relate to his little hiccup in our day. We are always the ones planning these experiences and adventures for our family. And if your like me you sort of envision how the day will go. The fun that will be had. The memories made. This magical time.
But....kids whine, dad's get ill, weather may change, or.....
YOU GET LOST!
Yep, LOST!
More on that later!
All the trails are named and we picked two that seemed to circle around back to place where we parked. Perfect route right......
We saw several snakes along the river.
Rocking climbing! Or at least pretending to rock climb!
He was only about 2 feet off the ground.
Beautiful flowers along the path.
This photo below is where our trip started to take a turn.
We had been walking for about 20 or 30 min on this trail and was fully expecting, that once we crossed this bridge the trail was about half over and we would be back on the way to the car.
Up until this point we had been laughing and exploring and having an amazing time.
There weren't any photos taken for the next little bit as we soon realized we were lost. The trail we were on took a HUGE loop back to the exact same bridge. A lot longer then we thought it was but it at least got up back to to this point. So we weren't officially "lost" until....at the bridge we had a decision to make. Left or right.....
We had came in earlier from the left and we could have went that way but from looking at the map it SEEMED like going to the right would loop back to our car in a much shorter distance.
Just for reference this is the map. Eno State Park is is 4200 acres and has over 30 miles of trails!
We went right and the next hour .... or more was spent walking in circles getting farther and farther from where we were trying to get to. We crossed rivers, many forks in the trails, and looked at our map over and over and over again. We realized we were officially lost!
After a little bit of panic and even a few tears, we sucked it up and worked on finding our way back.
I have no idea how many miles we walked but we were in the park right at 4 hours!
We finally came together and while walking down one trail we found.....THE BRIDGE!
The same one we were at when we make the decision to go the wrong way!
It was a big relief because we knew from that point we could make it out of the park! We knew the way back to our car from this point!!!! Hallelujah!!!
Our whole mood changed and we spent the rest of the walk in good spirits!
Light at the end of the tunnel! We were almost out of the woods!!!!!
Hensley has vowed to never go to a state park ever again (hoping that will change).
I felt awful because it was really all my fault.
However, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger......right?! 🤣
We did a have a fun time before the whole getting lost situation so we will focus on that!!!
Not every adventure is perfect.
Not all plans go as planned.
It is what it is. I'm sure we will look back and laugh at it......
one day!
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