We Tried

We tried. We gave it our best effort.

We thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent outside in Colorado this summer. We came home wondering if we just tried hard enough, could we learn to love the great outdoors of Arkansas? In spite of her personal feelings, Mom sees to it that Jack and I have lots of playtime outside most every day. We ride our scooters around campus, we go to parks to swing and slide, we take long walks downtown, and we play in the water table on our patio. But we don't really get out into "nature". We thought that today, Labor Day, would be the perfect day to explore the nature that Arkansas has to offer.

We checked online, found a National Park with a lake, packed a picnic, and headed out. We planned to spend the whole morning there playing and appreciating nature. We stayed for 30 minutes.

Sure it looks pretty, but looks can be deceiving! The air was sticky and humid (thank goodness it was only 79 degrees). The grass was super wet and wasn't going to dry any time soon because the air was so sticky. The bugs were out in full force. The lake water was murky, murky, murky, and the "beach" was mud. We tried to make the best of it, but it was just downright hard! Mom saw some showers and thought perhaps we would be okay in the end if we had a chance to get "de-bugged" and "de-mudded" by rinsing off, but then she saw the "problem with showers" sign. And on top of everything, we missed the part on the website about dogs not being allowed. Poor Norah was stuck in the car! (With the windows rolled down, of course.)

Shoes soaking wet from the grass, we headed up to the swings.

Apparently today wasn't a swinging day for Jack.

The tire swing was fun. I got all dizzy and giggly.

We decided to leave. We headed home to have our picnic in the park by our house. Sure the humidity, bugs, and wet grass were there, too. But in addition, there were sidewalks and a shaded picnic area! We had a nice time picnicking and playing together with Norah.

Now we're wondering just what our deal is. We truly do like the outdoors. The outdoors out west, that is! We seem to have a hard time getting past humidity, bugs, and murky water. What to do, what to do? We can't help the fact that our veins are filled with western blood. Do you think we could get a trade somewhere?

We might give this particular National Park another try later this fall. We think if we go some afternoon when it's cool, we might be okay. We'll have to see...

At least we tried.