Monday, November 17, 2014

Little Girls and Ladybugs



Redwood Regional Park is only a few miles away from us, and in addition to being a lovely redwood grove, it is also the winter home of swarms of ladybugs. If you're willing to take an easy 2 mile or so hike into the forest you can find some of them at the intersection of Prince and Creek trails. Even though today was pretty blustery, we decided to bundle up our bug loving little girl and head into the woods. 

I think it's fair to say it was slightly less impressive than I was expecting, but we all had a great time enjoying the crisp Autumn day and falling leaves. It also gave our hike a nice destination point and took us farther down the path than we normally go when visiting this park.

 I was shocked by how well ladybugs blend into Fall colors. I think I'm used to cartoonish depictions of ladybugs that are fire engine red, when in reality they are far more rust colored. Honestly we would have probably walked right by them if we didn't know they were there. I was also surprised because they were all on the ground when I expected them to be on the trees. 





Claire spent a lot of time letting her new friends crawl over her hands. Full disclosure, a few ladybugs might have lost their lives as a result of Claire's visit. We tried our best to keep them safe, but she's two.





Claire was  a trooper, but a multi-hour hike is  still a bit long for her. By the end she just kept telling us that she was ready to go night night. Luckily Daddy was more than willing to carry her as much as she needed. 


She also decided that playing Freaky Friday with their hats would make the end of the hike far more entertaining. Jeffry was the only one who didn't like this plan.