[nuclear_eggset]

I took myself, the dog, the daughter, and the boy I watch occasionally out to Barclay Lake today. I thought, a 3 and a 4 year old, familiar with hiking... Sure, we can do 4.2 miles round trip! Well, if I bribe them with homemade chocolate chip cookies, anyway. While there were a few cars in the (small) parking lot, we seemed to be breaking all the trail cobwebs, even at 10:30am. (There was at least one set of campers by the lake when we arrived there.) The inane chatter of small children powered the bulk of our walk to the lake (things like "when I was born, I was a transformer; I transformed into a car"). And there were lots of interesting things to spot on the trail (caves and trees with holes and so on). Fortunately, there were very few bugs to bother us the whole trip.

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The kids (and the dog) LOVED playing in the lake. It was all I could do to get them to eat a bit of a snack before returning to throw sticks for the dog and wade out into the water and so on. I know they would have liked it if we could have stayed longer, but we had to head home.

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The youngest definitely got tired on the way back, but we made it through with games of who would be leader, counting out who was in what position, pretending to be bees, and pretending to be various monsters from various kids movies. (Yeah, I can only imagine what the people who hear us hiking past them thing. Ah well.) The kids got another cookie at the car, so all was well.

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[mjl]

sweet place. took my son there for his first backpack trip 2 years ago. a great place to start!

[flatsqwerl]

that smooth sandy beach looks like a great swimming/playing spot for kids.

[Hiker Mama]

Great job, you guys! That's a solid hike for a 3 & 4 year old!

[ericom]

Looks like a great trip. How was the bug situation at the lake? Did you have to put some bug spray on the kids? thanks