Suspension Bridge

During our entire visit, Colter had been begging for us to hike to the Suspension Bridge, on the Sheltowee Trace Trail.

Sheltowee Trace is a 282 mile trail.

And Colter wanted us to hike to the suspension bridge on it.

282 miles.

I was not that thrilled.

But Dad did a little research, and found out that the bridge was only about a half a mile from one of the places you can get on the trail. So on our last full day, we drove there to hike it.

It was an OK trail, as trails go. Unfortunately, there was poison ivy everywhere. And because of all the wind/rain there were a bunch of trees down blocking the trail. But the boys actually liked scrambling over the trees.

It was quite an adventure trying to get Jade (my hiking buddy) through all of that. Thankfully we were walking with Mom, Dad, and Indigo.

On most of the trails we hike, the older four boys run ahead (mom says it’s a guy thing). This time, they all ran ahead, but they waited for us to show us this:

Yes, that is a pile of swallowtail butterflies. There were some black swallowtails, yellow swallowtails, and some zebra-tails. At least, that is what Emery told me. It was really cool. Butterflies kept coming, and going. We are not exactly sure what they were doing, we just know that it was really pretty.

This is what we look like on most of our hikes. Dad goes ahead, checking for more poison ivy. I hold Jade’s hand, trying to prevent her from going off the trail. (On one side was massive amounts of poison ivy, on the other side was a very swollen Red River. I keep Jade’s blanket over my arm (so it doesn’t drag in the poison ivy) while Indi and Mom bring up the rear.

And most of the time, we can’t even see the boys. Every once in a while we will see the flash of a red shirt, or the back of a head. But that is about it. Until we reach our destination.

Then the boys decide they want to do something stupid. I’m not sure why. Probably because they are boys.

They decided that they all wanted to hang, by their feet and hands, on the suspension bridge.

I will never understand boys. Here Colter decided that he was going to stand up on the railing. I just don’t get why he thought that would be awesome?

On our way back to the Hulk, we saw Chimney Top Rock. Indi and Jade thought that it was really cool that we hiked all the way up there!

When we got back to the house, Mom told us all to strip, leave our clothes, shoes, and hats by the washing machine, and go wash every square inch of ourselves to make sure nobody got poison ivy. Mom was really mad at herself because she forgot to pack the jewelweed soap that we make for poison ivy.

I got to take the little girls in the shower with me. Guess what?

Colter took all of the hot water.

I’m not kidding. We had lukewarm water for the first thirty seconds. Then it went to chilled, then freezing. Have you ever had two little girls in the shower with you, you have to get them completely clean, and somebody else took all the hot water?

Trust me, not fun. I ended up wetting them, and then soaping them, rinsing them, shampooing their hair, not putting in the conditioner, rinsing them completely off, and then giving them a towel and telling them to go get dressed while I washed myself.

They were smart.

They put on their bathing suits.

I got dressed.

They went and sat in the hot tub.

I sat, shivering on the couch, hoping that my sweater would get out of the dryer soon.

I think that Colter was the only one who was really happy.

He got to go to the suspension bridge.

He got to have a hot shower.

He got to go in the hot tub.

Oh well, at least I got to get some exercise and enjoy the pretty trail!