We had a great Memorial Day with Austin's family in a cabin in the mountains near Boone, North Carolina. Tucker has been eager to hike because he's been looking through our photo books from his first two years recently and has seen all the pictures of us going on hikes when he was little. We really didn't hike much last summer because he was so discontent being in the kiddie backpack but couldn't be self-propelled either because he fell and hurt himself on the trail (and just couldn't walk that far!).
So this weekend was Tucker's first "real" hike on Grandfather Mountain. He only made it a mile, but it was a tough mile--the trail was composed of rocks and roots and it was really a scramble for a two year-old. But he was game for the challenge and hiked for almost an hour and a half straight. We saw a snail, a neat rock overhang, talked a lot about bears, and collected sticks. Tucker tends to want me to carry all of his treasures that he collects on our walks, but I didn't feel like carrying a whole arm-full of sticks (especially because I needed to just about constantly hold his hand to help him on the trail). Instead we devised a system whereby he found a neat stick and I took a picture of him with it before leaving it behind.
The other very notable thing about our hiking trip was Tucker's constant narration. I don't think the boy stopped talking the entire time we were on the trail. I'm not sure what he talked about... mostly just exactly what he was doing, ("I be walking on the rocks. I be looking for a bear....") The one-sided conversation was truly remarkable, not for its depth but for its sheer duration and constancy.
