After we had an unexpected death in the family, Steve and I were both totally thrown for a loop and didn’t entirely know what to do with ourselves.  We’d been planning to take a long weekend and go up to New York State to visit my parents around the Fourth of July, which we thought about cancelling (they’d have totally understood).  Ultimately, we decided that we wanted the distraction and to be around family during a sad time for us, so we packed our bags and headed north, as planned.  We did the normal things for our summer visits to my folks’ – a day at the lake, pizza at Kay’s – and my parents also asked us if we felt like a hike.  We did, and they took us to one of their favorite spots – Bash Bish Falls State Park.

Bash Bish straddles the border between New York State and Massachusetts – so much so that there is one parking lot in NYS and one parking lot in Mass, and you can approach the waterfall from either.  We headed to the Massachusetts lot, because my parents told us the hike was more fun – down an actual trail, into a ravine.  (From the New York side, the approach is just a dirt carriage road – easier than the Massachusetts hike, but not as interesting.)  We loaded the kiddos up and started the hike down, down, down.

The falls were gorgeous!  And it was a hot day – the water looked so inviting.  There were people wading and swimming (despite signs warning visitors not to swim) but having kids on our backs, we stayed well up on the driest part of the boulders.

I had Peanut, who – as I told Zan on Instagram – only weighs one pound more than Nugget these days.  (Amazing.)  She’s actually a little easier to carry, because she’s taller, so her weight distribution is a little better (for me).  But since they’re basically equivalent, we just let them decide where they want to ride these days.  Anyway, even if she’s a little easier to carry, I was kind of regretting it, because she wanted to get down and swim – and when I said no, she had a good, solid tantrum right in my left ear.  Lovely.

Steve’s burden was much quieter.

Anyway, after listening to Peanut whine for 15 minutes (keeping it real, folks) I told her I was done carrying her and, also, time to go.  I plucked her out of the backpack and told her she was hiking out of the ravine on her own two feet.  Which she did, powered by her five-year-old rage, without breaking a sweat.  When we got back to the parking lot, the four adults were heaving out-of-breath and dripping with sweat, and she looked like she’d been sitting on the couch watching cartoons.  So unfair.

Bash Bish Falls, you’re lovely!  I’m so glad we got to visit and try out one of my parents’ favorite hikes – and to add another state to our total for 2018.

Have you hit the trails recently?