a walk in the woods

About a month ago, I met my new international students—Isha (red), Surbhi (headband) and Lubna (blue). Well, Lubna is not really one of mine. The students that are here for one semester don't get a host family. But you can't break up the three musketeers, can you? And the one in yellow? You all know who she is. She belongs

The one in yellow? You all know who she is. She belongs to Angel and Darrell.

The day we met we planned to hike today. They have really crowded schedules. I gave them four places to pick from, they left it up to me. I discounted the Water Gap. It's busy this time of year. I had settled on Ringing Rocks.

I woke this morning and it's drizzling. It looked like it was going to pour all day. Rocks+Rain = Disaster. I needed a Plan B.

I picked three that I knew I would be able to get to without directions. Or minimal directions. And they were all near Easton, because I had to pick up the Teen.  When I picked up the three at NCC I had the directions taped to the dashboard. I told Isha to pick one. She picked Martins Creek Reserve. It's a PPL property near the nuclear power plant. (That's on the Jersey side of the river.)

It was crazy walking with this group. I thought I was easily distracted. We (okay, they) climbed on fallen trees. And under them. And over them. And made slo-mo videos on them.

They climbed on rocks. This particular one was covered with some sort of sticky bush. We had to pick stickers out of Lubna's hajib, sweater, shirt and pants.

 They climbed on the rocks in the river and the Teen took off her shoes and went in to her knees.

 It took 2 hours to walk 2 miles. When we reached the observation deck we took more pictures, danced, spun, climbed, stared at the water and all other kind of fun things.

It only took about 40 minutes to get back to the start. After lunch we headed to the playground.  They played like 5-year-olds. And made more videos including mannequin videos and slo-mo falling videos.

Miles/Steps:   About 4.5
Weather:        humid, overcast, drizzle
Wildlife:          at the one river stop, on the Jersey side, there must have been 300 geese. Large gaggles stretching for a half mile. Bizarre.
Extras:           Do you see Isha's purple shirt in the dancing photo? It's not a shirt! When she took off her sweatshirt her arms were bare. At one of the play-in-the-water stops, her arms turned purple. I asked her how she put on another shirt. She didn't. They are sleeves! Think evening gown gloves without hands. Amazing.