Going on a bear hunt

We had a great mini-vacation this past week.

It started in Washington, D.C., where Edith and Bismarck visited with Mor-mor (a.k.a. the long suffering keeper of the baby and dog in a small hotel room) while Mom and Dad attended a wedding.

On instinct, Mor-mor brought Edith some crackers with Elmo on the box. We only recently discovered that Edith can identify Elmo, despite never having watched TV or owned any Elmo toys, clothes, or other paraphrenalia. The crackers were a huge hit and remained so throughout the next three days, during which they may have comprised 75% of her diet. "Eh-MOH! Eh-MOH!" So much for avoiding "brand" recognition.

The next morning we visited the Mall. How big is the Washington Monument? "So big!"

The Smithsonian carousel is a classic, and you get a long ride for your $2, too.

A lost opportunity: We were making our way from the Washington Monument down to the reflecting pool and the Lincoln Memorial, thinking Edith would like both the water and the steps. But just east of the Washington Monument we were stopped by police, who had cordoned off the whole lawn. Figuring it was yet another security measure in our brave new world, we didn't ask any questions but headed back up the mall. We'd gotten far away when suddenly the air traffic Edith had been pointing out overhead sounded much closer, and we turned to see two Marine helicopters land right there on the lawn, while a third went over and landed at the White House. We were too far away by this point to see who was getting out, alas. I may abhor the administration, but I'm not above a little gawking. And Edith would have loved being that close to the helicopters.

All too soon, it was time to part ways with Mor-mor. She headed back south and we headed west to the mountains for Edith's first camping trip. We had no idea how camping with a toddler would turn out, but Tom had done some online research and decided this would be a cheap, relaxing vacation and something we'd like to try.

We arrived in Shenandoah National Park amidst a dense fog but managed to find our little rented cabin in the woods and were quickly enchanted with it. I only wish my family had known about the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club's cabin rental program back when I longed for the chance to play nineteenth-century frontier family. With a few equipment improvements, like nylon and a Pack-n-Play (we may be on the only people who have ever hiked into the backcountry with a Pack-n-Play), that's more or less what we were for two fabulous days. We saw no other people that whole time and were completely and blessedly removed from everything but the need to meet our basic needs.

I enjoyed camping when I was younger, but it made me nervous, too. I wasn't entirely comfortable being out of touch with civilization and all the things that bound me to the world in which I knew who I was and how to operate. Now I find that I relish the chance to be out of touch with human activity and in touch with natural surroundings. It feels deeply restorative and indeed, valuable to a sense of self in the first place.

Edith liked it, too. In fact, she was so excited at the novelty the first night that she could hardly contain herself. She didn't eat but just tried climbing on everything. There were two stone steps up to the cabin door, and she figured out how to go up and down them without any assistance. Since she has never consented to descend stairs backwards but insists on walking down them facing forward and standing up, like an adult, she has always needed a hand. This weekend she figured out how to do it by herself.

She also learned to climb up on logs, low stone walls, and picnic table benches. And she found out that if you head out down a steep grassy knoll you may take a tumble and roll. But despite our lax supervision in some respects, we were ironclad about her never touching the fireplace or the wood stove, even when they weren't in use, and she learned this one rule very quickly. She'd stand at a stipulated distance, peer into the stove, and tell us "Hot hot fire fire hot fire hot!" and then blow, like she'd seen us do.

Though when it comes to capable kids, some prior visitors to the cabin had us beat. Just when I was starting to feel proud of myself for camping in a primitive cabin in the backcountry with a toddler, I read the cabin log and discovered at least two familes had camped there this year with three or more children under the age of 8, one of the families in mid-February in a snowstorm. The other family had four boys, ages 8, 6, 4, and 18 months. Their entry included, "On the first day we had the boys chop the firewood supply for our stay."

Bismarck was in heaven. Not only a vacation on which he could join us, but two days without being on leash, free to roam out of the house and through the woods, smell and explore and chase deer, then come back and settle down easily beside us to survey the landscape. And no strangers or startling noises at which to bark for two whole days.

We did some hiking along the Appalachian Trail and to an old ruined mission and abandoned cemetery in the woods. Edith started out in good faith but overall was less enthusiastic about the walks than about climbing around the cabin.


She traveled most of the hiking distance like this:

Or sometimes like this:

Having carried her for one 2-mile uphill trudge, I still am working out leg cramps two days later. All in all, sixteen months old may be the least advantageous time for a hiking vacation: too little to walk purposefully for more than a few minutes, awfully heavy to carry for more than a few miles. Not that we minded terribly: we had nowhere we had to be at a certain time, and we weren't trying to cover much ground to begin with. But I suspect that it's one of those things we'll look back on in a few years, incredulous that we ever tried it.

We were very sad to leave Shenandoah. We're already thinking about how to make this a family tradition.

We eased the transition a bit by driving back through Harper's Ferry, a beautiful historic town that I'd never seen, and a new state for Edith. We got to walk across the river from Harper's Ferry to the Maryland side of the Potomac while a long freight train was crossing the bridge parallel to us in the opposite direction.

Bismarck, meanwhile, may remember Harper's Ferry as the place where the friendly luncheonette owner decided he needed to try ice cream.

The final haul through eastern Pennsylvania was tough. But Edith is getting better at passing time in the car. The ratio has dropped to about 1/3 sleeping time, 1/3 fussing time, and 1/3 entertained time, through our efforts and her own. Not bad.