Earlier this week, in the final days of our winter break, I took my family on a hiking trip around parts of the James River Park trail system (primarily the North Bank and Buttermilk trails). It was chilly but sunny, only lightly windy, and fairly dry. My kids were really into it for the first few miles, and in my head we really only had about 4 miles tops ahead of us on our loop. But then it turned out that my lack of planning meant that we were really staring down about 6 miles of hiking from start to finish. Not only was this a bit more than the kids (and Valerie) had bargained for, but it also backed us up against a time constraint. We needed to be back at the house in time for my oldest kid to get picked up by a friend for a trip to the movie theater.
Somewhere between 3.5 and 4 miles, my wife and I agreed that I would leave the backpack with her and the kids and I would travel much faster by myself ahead to the car so I could drive back and pick them up before the end of the loop. We all made it back in time with about 25 minutes to spare, but now I'm sworn to plan out our route ahead of time before dragging everybody on an extended hike again!
