First day of spring

Claire and I celebrated the vernal equinox by hiking through a nearby forest. The trip started promisingly. Claire stared upward at a towering Doug fir even before we got to the park.








We stopped often along the path.











She yanked on a young cedar tree's needles. She touched her first bit of moss and palmed some lichen.









She seemed mesmerized by the creeks we passed, staring quietly down at the water, leaving babbling all to the brook.



She fell asleep on the back side of the trail, only to be woken by passing SUVs.

She tolerated me stopping at a drug store to make prints from our digital camera.

She's a keeper.

I recounted the day for Sarah when she got home. She found it humorous that I took the diaper bag with me on the hike. "Where were going to change her if she needed changing?" she asked. "The bridge," I said. I had it all figured out.