[58] Point Defiance Trail

You may remember from a previous post that we were making our way through a local hiking book. Well, that's not gone very far, very fast. In fact, today was the first time since then that we ventured out on a hike and we went to the same spot on the South Yuba River but went the opposite direction on the river this time.Point Defiance is the name of the hike. A good name for taking two young children. I'm not sure what was so defiant about the trail. It was quite easy at 3.0 miles. (I know exactly how long because I brought my new Garmin running watch and it worked like a champ.)The hike itself wasn't that remarkable. It had a few nice vistas of the river and it was a technical trail with lots of rocks to scramble over and ditches to descend. Overall, it was a fairly classic foothill hike with lots of butterflies and lizards, oak trees providing shade (who knew we'd need cool shade on a mid-March hike?), and a river guiding the way.What was remarkable about the hike, however, was Oliver. We have grown fond of calling him "The Anchor" because, well, on a hike with him, it's like dragging an anchor most of the way. He'll usually tell you that he dislikes hikes before, during, and after. He definitely does not like the car ride part, especially ones that include slow, curvy roads as he gets car sick pretty easy. But this time was different (except for the car ride part, he still whined most of the way there). He went from being the anchor to being the propeller. It's like he took happy pills or something. He led most of the way, would stop at a moment's notice and point out some nature thingy on the trail, and told us several times how much he loves his family. It was weird, but one of those good weirds.You can check out some pictures here.