Hiking The French Creek Trails

Back when it was still warm, we were doing a fair amount of hiking.  It's amazing how just being in nature can sometimes inspire the imagination in such a profound way.

 We went with Oma, Heidi and Rachel.  Indie, Shrapnel, Ringo and Star came along, too.  They sniffed out a lot of interested things for us.  Very helpful.



  During this particular hike, J & L were both describing their imaginary worlds to us.  It was fantastic.  Lavi and Heidi were fairies -in a wood nymph kind of way- and had to hide behind trees.



We had to be very quite because the giants might hear us and they'd be angry that we were in their woods without permission.  This led to frequent shushing from Lavinia.  



Jonas told us about the mermaids in the creek, and how to look in just the right way to see them.  He and Lavinia seemed to be the only ones who could do this properly.

 There were some bridges and wooden paths, and it turns out that trolls and noddalins (look like gnomes, act like bridge-trolls) lived under them. A good round of stomping let them know 
we were there, so not to worry. We saw what I thought was a caterpillar, but turned out to be a 
spy for the giants.  This was very bad, but we were able to run to the car fast enough, and got 
away safely.