Glad that Daniel Boone Wasn't With Us

Every summer the boys and I usually go hiking at least once with my mother-in-law (hi Janice!). We usually go to Hanging Rock in Danbury, NC, but since the boys and I just went there this past Friday with Sarah and Samuel, we decided to try a new (to us) park. Alan found "Boone's Cave Park" for us near Lexington.

The park itself is pretty minimal...a picnic shelter with a few tables and a bathroom and a reconstructed 1740s cabin. But the trails through the forest were pretty easy and well-maintained. We came almost immediately to the cave above, which is where Daniel Boone (who really got around if all the stories of where he has been are to be believed) and his family supposedly hid from Native Americans. Hopefully Daniel Boone and his family were about two feet tall because that cave is pretty narrow.

We saw all kinds of neat nature stuff like fish and mussels and water bugs in the Yadkin River, a HUGE cottonwood tree (I know nothing about cottonwoods...why am I associating those with southern plantations??), a toad, lots of interesting flowers and plants and berries and nuts, a loaded wasp nest, and a lizard.

Hmm. The lizard. We ended the hike back at the picnic shelter, and I saw it scooting across a wall. While Janice talked to two young men that were about to leave in their work van, I chose to pick up the lizard to show Matthew and Michael. The lizard was about two inches long and quite squirmy. The boys were very interested in trying to touch it, and it ran up my arm and then jumped onto my shirt to get away from them. The shirt being one of those thin strappy kind of tank tops that doesn't require undergarments. And then, of course, the lizard seemed to dive right down the front of my shirt. Now, I like lizards, but you know, maybe not right there. So, I'm shrieking a bit and grabbing at my shirt trying to get the lizard out. Which is when I ended up flashing two men I don't know. And thankfully will never see again. With my mother-in-law watching the whole thing. And laughing her head off at me.

It's the price I pay for wanting to expose my children to nature. Unfortunately, in the process, I ended up exposing two unsuspecting men to more of my nature than was intended.