Lost in the woods

So this weekend my family got lost in the woods. No, I am not using a deep metaphor. We actually got lost in the woods by our house.

Saturday morning we decided to spend some family time together. A few weeks ago I started teaching at Gymboree, especially doing birthday parties on the weekends. Given that and DH's aforementioned extreme work schedule with the end of the semester, we haven't really seen that much of one another so we wanted to do something fun. But we didn't have too much time. Q had speech therapy at noon, and it was already after 10am. So we decided to take a walk. It was a beautiful spring morning and there are some excellent hiking trails right near our house. It made sense at the time.

We started out on trails we already knew but fairly soon we crossed a bridge over to the other side of a small river. We had never been on this side of the river and decided to do some exploring. Surely, we thought, there would be a bridge somewhere along the line where we could cross back over the river and go towards home. Looking back, of course, this looks like a poor decision. We had not decided to be out that long. We had no provisions with us, no water or food. DH had a cel phone and Q had a toy plane and that was pretty much the extent of our supplies. C was happily seated in her backpack on DH's back. But for some reason we thought this was no big deal.

All the sudden it is 11:45 and there is no bridge anywhere. We have already been walking for over an hour. Though we talk about walking back the way we came, I am aware that in 15 minutes we are supposed to be at speech therapy. DH has his phone but we don't have the therapist's number with us as we didn't expect to be, you know, lost in the fucking woods. Q is getting tired and I am alternately carrying him and holding his hand while pulling him along. The only one who is really happy is our dog. We push on hoping to find a bridge soon. We are in the middle of suburbia but I hear no road noise, see no houses, and there are no people around. I am starting to get worried.

We have now started casing the river for crossing points. We cross a small stream and I somehow think we are now going in the right direction back home. DH knows better. Finally we see some people! One woman says there is no bridge anywhere near here. We keep going, not sure what to do. We run into a man walking his two dogs. He says that we need to cross the river now because if we keep going the trail we're on will curve away from the river. There is a fallen tree across the river and we can try to get over on that. A quick walk onto the tree convinces me that this isn't the way to go. Finally we find a shallow part where we can cross. The incredibly nice and helpful man with the dogs helps us get to the riverbank. (Keep in mind we have a dog, a walking preschooler and a backpack full of toddler. It isn't easy to get anywhere where there isn't a clear trail.) By this time we are very late to speech and basically we have missed our appointment.

After we cross the river (our shoes and lower pants now soaked) we start back on the path and we quickly find out we are at least on the right track but still a mile and a half from where we entered the trail. I am beyond tired now and I take C from DH's back so that DH can carry Q. Even the dog looks ready to go home.

Finally the trail starts to look familiar. And eventually we emerge back onto the street. Civilization!! Thank God!! At 1pm we return home and I call our speech therapist to try to explain. How exactly do you tell someone you went out for a walk only to get lost in the woods and not sound like a complete idiot? Pretty much you can't.

DH thinks it was all a grand adventure. My legs, still sore from trekking around with children in tow, aren't so sure. If only we had no appointments and some water and snacks I think it would have been a far better situation. We looked at a map when we got home and there really was no bridge anywhere close to where we were. And so it was that my intrepid family got lost in the woods in the middle of the suburbs. No, there's really no way to get out of sounding like a complete idiot.