California
July 2014
Our last hike of the trip was at Muir Woods National Monument. Even though it was well over 100 degrees and early on a Friday afternoon, the road leading to the park had cars parked on both shoulders for miles. I knew I couldn't walk a great distance with both girls on such a narrow road with so many cars coming and going. With doubt that we could visit the park, we pressed on hoping for a disabled spot close to the visitor center. As we approached, I realized that there was an entire parking lot for disabled parking. Of course it was full, but we got lucky, a car was backing out as we arrived. I know all about hidden disabilities, but Kellisa was the only wheelchair we saw. For every one hidden disability, I bet there's 10 people abusing the disabled parking card...if not more.
Anyway, we found the trail to be fully accessible and easy as we hiked through our last redwood forest for the trip. Laurel again insisted on pushing Kellisa for most of the trail. We saw more people on this trail than all of our other hikes on this trip combined. The count wouldn't even be close, but the golden rule of hiking definitely applied to this trail. As soon as we were about a mile from the trailhead, we almost had the trail to ourselves. At 1.5 miles away, we were by ourselves. I dreaded turning back and fighting the crowds. But, an ice cream awaited us at the park café on this hot summer afternoon making the return trek tolerable.
No comments:
Post a Comment