Our Weekend Adventure
Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge
Our trip began just less than an hour away from our home in Bellevue, Washington. All the girls except Aja (who I backpacked) had their own lunches tucked away in their own backpacks, all gearing to go. The day was cloudy and had rained earlier in the morning. The Nisqually Wildlife Refuge is an estuary with wild birds, rabbits, migrating blue herons, ducks and geese. It is one of the remaining undisturbed salt marshes in the Puget Sound.
As we started down the trail I explained the rule of silence, so
as to not disturb any wildlife. After several "Shhh...'s" we
walked through brush and trees and we began to see
goslings, ducklings, flying blue herons, and baby rabbits...and their
parents. And, naturally, we saw a-many creepy crawly insects and bugs, an abundant amount of
snails and slugs (some underfoot..sorry!).
Ariana's favorite: Ladybugs... we noticed how it wouldn't fly
away until it got to the top of the branch, that's their nature.
Ashlyn and Amber found hatched blue(robin's) eggshells, and decided
it would be an exciting item for 'Sharing' at school.
After one mile into our hike, it started to downpour..we got soaked
and waited under a large over-rooted tree overlooking the bright
green meadow marsh until the rain toned down. We continued for another
mile (which along the way Ariana decided she wanted to step in every
puddle in her path) in a loop back to where we parked. By now we were
very hungry, so we ate our lunch before taking off for home.
It was a pleasant afternoon, and I knew the girls had a great little
expedition.
They didn't have to tell me, because as I was discussing all
the sights and sounds we saw and
heard, I looked in my rear-viewed mirror to find they were all
sound asleep. Peace at last.
Hike Rating(Out of 5): 
