The Hike from Hell

Today I signed up for a challenge at work called Hike to Healthiness. Over the next few weeks, we are challenged to hike 8 trails protected by the Mississippi Valley Conservatory. Along each trail is a plaque with a factoid, which you record on sheet to turn back in at the end of summer, with the possibility to win a gift card (I'm all about winning free stuff!). This sounded like a fantastic way to get my kids out in the great outdoors! I also thought we could combine one of our other favorite pastimes (geocaching) while we were at it.

I scoped out the list of trails this morning and chose the New Amsterdam Grassland Nature Preserve. This sounded like an easy place to start...not a long hike up the face of Grandad's Bluff, but a nice, easy stroll through some grasslands. These grasslands are an important nesting area for rare grassland birds (Henslow's Sparrow and Bell's Vireo) and the trail around it is only 1.1 miles. I also learned, from the geocaching website, that this was the site of some old sand dunes and the information in the geocache description was very educational (always a bonus to throw in a little education in a summer activity).

The weather was perfect (not too hot, no rain) so we stopped at Subway to grab a picnic lunch, filled up our water bottles, applied sunscreen, and headed off to find this new trail. It's located near the town of New Amsterdam (which I had never even heard of, even though I've lived in La Crosse for most of my life) and the drive there was short and very pretty.

We pulled into the parking lot and admired the beautiful scenery: tall grasses blowing in the wind, bluffs in the background, farms lining the edge of the nature preserve.

We stopped at the sign to take a picture and headed off on our hike.

Josh was super excited to find the factoid sign and he marched ahead of the rest of us. Here he is (below) pointing out a donkey at a farm nearby. 

The kids did great for the first .6 miles, which was were the factoid sign was located. Jacob was a little leery of the flying bugs, but he plowed along anyways. I had promised them that once we found the factoid sign, we would stop for our picnic.

As we were turning the bend right after the sign, we found a spot in the shade near two tall trees. I spread out our picnic blanket....and that is when the Hike to Healthiness turned into the Hike from Hell. Josh started screaming as he realized there was a tick crawling up his leg. As he flew off the blanket, Katie realized she had one on her shoe. All three kids started jumping up and down, screaming and crying, "Get it off, get it off". I looked down and found one on each of my legs too. 

Now I may be a little uneducated about the outdoors, but I really wasn't expecting ticks in a grassland preserve. I thought we would encounter those later on, in our hikes up the bluffs.  Boy was I WRONG!

We pulled up the picnic blanket and started speed walking around the trail to get back to our car. Josh cried hysterically the entire way there, and we stopped to pull ticks off our legs, socks, and clothes every few hundred feet. Jake kept lecturing me on what a horrible idea this was, and why hadn't I done any research on ticks and grasslands (good point). It only took us about 10 minutes to reach our car again, but I'm sure that any wildlife we would have seen on the walk was terrified by the screeches and cries of my three children!!

For posterity sake, I made my kids take another picture when we got back to the sign ("So we can remember to NEVER come back here again", said Katie). Notice Josh's terrified face and Katie scratching herself. 

We tried to do a tick check outside the car, but as we stood there, more ticks kept climbing onto our legs. I got off the few I could spot, and the kids piled into the van. Katie ripped off her shoes and found a tick on the sole of her foot, while Josh found three more on his legs and arms on the way home. 

 

Needless to say, I have been unable to get any of my kids outside to play on this beautiful afternoon. They all keep itching themselves (as do I), convinced they will find another tick. I hate to even mention the possibility of another hike next week (though it can't go any worse than this one!!). 

So, I would like to take the time to thank my employer and the Mississippi Valley Conservatory for encouraging us to participate in this Hike to Hike to Healthiness Hell....I may never get my kids outside again! Cheers to another 75 days of summer and the possibility of spending them all indoors (and we never did get to find that geocache).