Brown County

On Sunday, we packed up lunch and car entertainment and headed down to Brown County. I figured the leaves would be mostly down by now, but the weather was nice, and I was in the mood to hike around.We got to the north entrance which has a covered bridge, and Jacob was very excited. He could hardly talk. Once we got into the park, he said "This is so awesome I don't even know what words to say." He really wanted to go hiking, but we needed to drive around and get our bearings a bit.

First we found a vista with a great view. Then, we drove to the Nature Center which has the "Friends Trail", a paved path. It has an orignal gate house which you can go into, an observation deck, and some benches. I think Jacob lapped us a few times, but it was a nice easy walk that Tyler could enjoy.After the Nature Center, we went to the Discovery Train. It has 27 markers on the trail pointing out various tidbits of nature trivia. Surprisingly, Jacob was very interested. He was great at finding the next number on the trail, and wanted to know what the next question or task was. Since Tyler took ownership of the map early on, we had to make up a few. One of the first ones on the list was "What made this hole?" The answer was a man made well. After Tyler took the map, the questions became, "Count five leaves falling before moving to the next number." or "Feel the beech tree. Doesn't it feel like sand? Feel more trees and count three more beech trees." We impressed ourselves with this one. Jacob ran around to five different trees and was able to identify which ones were and weren't beech based on the texture of the bark.

After the Discovery Trail, we found a picnic table for lunch. We were swarmed by ladybugs, which was surprisingly okay until the boys went to the outdoor potty which was even worse. They came out covered in over twenty ladybugs. The bugs even got in our car.

Then, we went to the campground playground to play on the swings, four person bouncy thing, the sandbox, and the wooden house. The boys both enjoyed climbing to the top of the house. By then, we were all dirty and exhausted, so we got back in the car and came home. It was a great day had by all on one of the last warm days of the year.