Lyla’s team is nearing the end of their fall season. They played their last regular season game, then this past weekend they played in a ScrimmageFest in Fredricksburg. The weather was beautiful and so sunny and warm for November, so it was a fun, but tiring day for the girls.
The next day, we met at the Williams house to celebrate Poppy’s birthday. We had a delicous dinner, and I got to meet the famous Layne Gaga for the first time! Clearly, I was starstruck!
Nina and Lyla had off school on Monday and Tuesday, so after I taught my class we headed over to the neighborhood theater to see the movie Trolls. The girls had been wanting to see it, and it was very cute. Lyla’s serious face is because she was acting like the troll, Branch, from the movie.
Both girls had practice that evening, and needless to say, I think by the end of the day, the busy weekend had caught up with Lyla.
Tuesday was another gorgeous fall day, and I really wanted to take the girls somewhere hiking that we hadn’t been before, so I decided to try out Sugarloaf Mountain. We made a quick stop to vote, then we were on our way. I had looked up the trail map to Sugarloaf online the previous night, and it appeared that it had good trails that were accessible for kids and dogs, so off we went! We had our picnic lunch and started off on the blue trail - exploring, climbing rocks, hiking along, and having a great time!
After hiking for about two hours, we seemed to keep walking deeper into the moutain without ever starting to circle back around on our loop. We had gotten to Sugarloaf around noon, so with the daylight hours shorter, I knew we didn’t have all day to spend on the mountain. Plus, the terrain was difficult in some spots and the girls were getting tired. We had almost run out of our water, and we stopped for a minute at a trail crossroads to evaluate where we were.
I tried to pull up the trail map on my phone, but I couldnt get internet service where we were. I hadn’t thought to print out the actual map at home the night before. As I turned to look behind us, I saw a sign for the area we parked in pointing back the direction we had come. I started to have a bad feeling as to why the sign would be telling us to go back the way we came to get to the parking lot if the trail was a loop. We had been hiking for two hours, so I thought certainly we would have passed the halfway point on our loop and if we kept following the blue trail we would get back to the parking lot.
We starting walking on again and the nagging feeling about that sign wouldn’t leave, so I decided to try texting Mark as I figured he was at his computer at work and could look at the trail map for me since my internet service still wasn’t working on my phone. I realized my texts weren’t going through, so I tried calling, but either the call would drop because I had lost my signal or when I could make the call, it went into his voicemal. I started to get a bit worried because we were deep into the mountain and hadn’t seen anybody on the trail for a long time, I’m directionally challenged (to put it nicely), and we’re all tired and almost out of water. I also tried calling my mom since she always picks up the phone when I call, but I couldn’t get ahold of her either. We laughed later that it was probably a very good thing I never got in touch with her. She’s more directionally challenged than I am, and knowing the Mouse, she probably would have set out immediately to try to come find us on the mountain (but probably not thinking to bring water, a flashlight, a map, etc.).
Anyway, as fate would have it, Mark called me. He had been in a meeting and saw me trying to call several times and stepped away to give me a call. Mark is very good with directions and located the trail that I was on from a map on his computer and advised me to turn around and hike back the direction we came. The blue trail was, in fact, a loop like I thought, but in my spontaneous planning, I failed to notice that it was a MUCH bigger loop than I thought. We would at some point have made it back to the car effectively, but I don’t know if we would have made it back before it got dark on the mountain, and I don’t know how we woud have made it back without much more water and with two tired kids.
Nina and Lyla were initally very upset that we had to walk back as far as we had come in order to get to the car, but to give them credit, they did a really good job once we started the trek back. I wouldn’t let us make any stops, and we hiked back at a blistering pace, but as we started to see people again, recognize things that we were famliar with on the trail, and see signs that we were getting closer to the car, we all got a big energy boost. We made it back to our starting point more quickly than we had hiked out, and I was one relieved mother when we arrived back at the car!! So, aside from my spontaneous planning almost leaving us stranded on a strange mountain without water or cell service in the dark, Sugarloaf Mountain is a great place to hike! :)
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