Somehow, I have let almost six weeks go by without telling you about our September hike – whoops!  Truth is, I thought we might be able to squeeze a few hikes into September, and I’d have a selection to choose from, but it ended up being a busy month and we didn’t get out on the trails as much as I’d have liked to.  Ah, well – that’s life, and I’m certainly glad that we made time for a hike in the beginning of the month.  Looking to mix things up, Steve suggested Piscataway Park, an NPS-managed park on the Maryland side of the Potomac, with awesome views of Mount Vernon.  I’m in!

Coming off a successful hike in Joshua Tree National Park, we had high hopes that Peanut would walk the entirety of the comparatively short and easy trail.  As it turned out, it was not her day.  Well – it happens.

Annnnnnnd she ended up here.  Much happier, I might add.  So, it was fine.  We hike for fun, and it’s much easier to have said fun when everyone is happy and no one is whining.  Still would like her on the trails consistently, but she’s only five.  We’ll get there.

As usual, I was rocking Nugget in the hiking backpack.  I’m pretty sure he weighs more than Peanut.  Just saying.

The trail was a pretty pathway through overhanging trees, but what made it particularly engaging was – do you see those signposts?  Each one was a page of a story about a pig who wanted to lay an egg, and all the shade his barnyard friends threw at him.

We took turns reading the story aloud to the kids.  I found the whole thing utterly delightful – the fact of the story being on the trail at all, the barnyard shenanigans – until the end of the story, in which the pig finally hatches his “egg” and it turns out to be a cocoon and the “baby” is a butterfly, and I just, NO.  NO to all of that.  Sorry for spoiling the story, but NO.

Anyway, after a short and easy hike, we reached the payoff – this view of Mount Vernon.  I swear it’s really there.  Sorry for the crummy picture – I snapped it on my phone, as I was hiking without my dSLR.

Our hike finished with time to spare, we decided to stay and poke around the National Colonial Farm, a little historic outpost I had no idea was hiding right across the river from Mount Vernon.

Nugget desperately wanted to play in this garden.  The boy loves plants.

We found a little dock with an even better view of Mount Vernon.

And we made some animal friends.

(Protecting his ladies.)

Why did the chicken cross the road?  Ahem.  Ahem.  Tap, tap.  Is this thing on?

We also met some other residents of the farm.

I derived great enjoyment from trying to make them break character.  (I kept thinking of the Bracebridge Dinner episode of Gilmore Girls, where Lorelai throws a period dinner during a snowstorm at the Independence Inn and Kirk waits at the table – remember that one?  Lorelai makes it her mission to get Kirk to slip up and her refuses, until she finally breaks him with an I Love Lucy reference.)

I never got them to break character, but they did admire my “time travel device” (cell phone) and I had way too much fun wishing them luck with the rebellion.  Their token male was a little unsure about which side to take, but I convinced him that he should join the Patriots and help oust George III.  I think I really bucked him up.

And a good time was had by all.

Have you ever hiked at a historic site?  Do you also like messing with period actors?