Program Planning

The weekend has arrived and the weather is fine. Sometimes that is a bad thing since it can distract me from doing necessary cleaning and paperwork.  Today however I had outdoor ‘work’ to do so good weather was a bonus.  I started the day by doing a few errands to pick up some gardening supplies and other items for next week.  A trip to Costco resulted in a couple of really cool new books – Survival Wisdom and Know How and the Saskatchewan and Manitoba Nature Guide.  Both look like they will be really useful.

Then my son and I went hiking.  Today was national trails day and to celebrate The Winnipeg Trails association held several special events.  There was free food (always a good thing) and plenty of great entertainment.

I often take the children on hiking adventures but it is important that I be at least somewhat familiar with the trail.  Exploring is fun but getting lost is not so my son and I scout the area to get familiar with the trail before I plan a hiking trip for the children.  This is my favourite part of program planning.

We have explored some parts of the Seine River Greenway in the past but we haven’t seen it all – there are so many great hiking trails in the city.  Today we checked out the Bois-des-Esprit section of the trail to see what it had to offer.

The wide gravel part of the main trail would be great if I had a very young group or if we needed to bring strollers or wagons.

There are also many smaller side trails and these are the ones that the boy and I were drawn to.  It is here on the lesser travelled trails that we find things like big rocks

Fallen trees

 

And cool bridges

 

There are places to practice going over

And under

Around

And through (which I’m certain will be a favourite).

This is one of many tree carvings of owls and wood spirits cleverly located along the trail

I wonder how many more we can find.  This promises to be one of many great summer adventures for us.