Freeburg Death March!

As I have said earlier, I can't ever sleep in at the schoolhouse so I often get up and go out with the dog on what Ted calls a "pajama walks", which is essentially a walk in my pajamas that ends up being much longer than intended.

This morning the world was so juicy and budding and sprouting and mating it was incredible. love the 'spring ephemerals' -the short-lived wildflowers that blossom early-on- and took a 2 mile hike looking for them. I returned and unlike yesterday, when I peeked in the window and found Thành just waking up (he was mighty surprised to see me looking in!), everyone was still asleep so I crawled back in bed and dozed off myself.

After we all got up, ate, washed and dressed, Ted suggested a 1.4 mile "as-the-crow-flies" hike to find a geo-cache he had looked up; it was extra-appealing because it was a cave! We left at 9 AM in glorious sunshine with Thành in his backpack. Crossing our neighbor Mac's hay field, we were suspected from afar of being mushroom poachers (morels are bountiful hereabouts and are in season) and he raced out in his pick-up with his enormous dog Jake to stop us. We had a nice chat and he told us about how waterlogged everything was so far this spring.

About three hours into the hike, which was all up and down in the coulee topography of Houston County, I started to think that perhaps Ted didn't know what he was doing and it turned out that he didn't! He had printed out the geo-cache listing, but never read it and had assumed that we would be able to find the route there on the system of State Forest trails that surround the schoolhouse.

By this point my infallible sense of direction was no good, because I had been taking pictures of wildflowers and just following along, not paying attention to where I was. Furthermore, in order to get the (#*$&@#! GPS device to recognize your current position, a person had to walk twenty or thirty steps. Let me just say that no one wanted, at this point, to walk twenty steps uphill only to find out that they were going the wrong way. We marched on another couple of hours.

After walking a long, long way -I estimate 8 miles- the last of which was a good 300 yard steep downhill bushwacking descent, we were .10 miles from the geo-cache but Thành and I were in desperate need of food and so we sat down in a dry creek bed on the valley floor to eat the SNACK that Ted had packed and drink sparingly from the ONE BOTTLE OF WATER that he had packed. I felt so bad for the dog that I let him drink some of it, too.

Needless to say, Louis was in tears at the prospect of not getting to the cave, so they continued up the other side of the valley, found the treasure, signed their names, explored the cave and returned happy.

By this time I was starting to worry about being out in the woods with a tot and no more supplies at 4 PM, so we followed the creek south and then trespassed across a farm pasture with a lovely pond. We stopped to let the dog get wet and were admiring the millions of tadpoles when we saw a tiny painted turtle hiding under an oak leaf. We checked him out, made some canals to repatriate some tadpoles that were stranded in footprints separate from the pond and continued on through a field and then a cattle yard.

By this time, Ted had removed his belt to use as a makeshift leash for the dog so that he wouldn't chase a calf, I lost my Merrell clog (why would you put on your hiking boots for a 1 mile hike?) in an unctuous mud/cow shit combination -Louis almost wet his pants pulling it out as I stood in the muck in my sock- and Ted had ripped out the crotch of his pants on some barbed wire. We popped out into a breathtakingly beautiful valley that we did not recognize in the least and when we got to a farm with someone home, Ted asked where we were. Low and behold, we were a stone's throw from Little Miami, our favorite supper club in the next valley. In other words, about ten miles from home.

It turned out that we had popped out of the forest where we should have started the hike. Ted doesn't get to plan a hike again for a really long time, if ever. Men and their gadgets. I only got mad once, when he offered the GPS to have me for the third time. Setting off with a two year-old and a seven year-old, one bottle of water, a can of smoked oysters, a box of Triscuits, two oranges and an apple. and no idea where he was going. I told him that I never wanted to see the thing again in my life.

When we hit the road that went to the main road he hung out his thumb and unbelievably two families going fishing together stopped for us. Who in their right minds would stop for two people with muddy shoes, a guy in a straw fedora with his underwear hanging out and a wet dog on a belt? Nice folks. Louis, Moby and I rode in the back of a pick-up and Thành sat on Ted's lap (to hide the hole) in a mini-van and we were delivered to Reno. Only two miles from home!

We walked to the Reno State Forest Campground where I told Ted that the kids and I would be laying in the grass while he went for the car. Not a soul passed going up the bluff, so we knew he was walking the entire way. Luckily when he came back he had the sense to bring water, cold beer and chips.

When we got back to the schoolhouse we were all so worn out we could barely move. Even Moby would not get up to drink a cup of milk I offered him. Initially I thought we needed to spend the night and leave for home early in the morning, but as the kiddie melt-down set in we decided to throw everything in the car and go. Thành was asleep before we hit the river road but Louis made it until 9 PM.

Without the good nature of our kids, the stamina of the family and the beautiful weather we had, this hike could have been a disaster. It certainly was an adventure. We call it the Freeburg Death March.