The Sucker Dad's Guide to Not Surviving a Hike

Is your phone fully charged Dad?

It's been a good week for me as I was 'forced' (lots of arm twisting) to take the whole week off from my work because Lukas' school, which goes through the summer, was out of session the 1st - 3rd preceding the holiday weekend.

It didn't hurt that the weather here in Seattle was simply gorgeous, with sunny skies, low humidity, and cool breezes.  I am thinking of calling his school to see what it would take to get them to close next week too.  But I'm not hopeful.

As we did on an earlier break, Lukas and I decided to take advantage of this time together to, among other things, go on a local hike.  Okay, so I decided  for us - but he was eventually okay with it once he resolved himself to the fact that he could still build some of his birthday Lego sets after we got home or, gasp, the next day!

The hike wasn't overly long, but we survived about a thousand feet of elevation gains during our nearly 5 mile round trip which wasn't bad since we didn't take many breaks along the way.

However, once he saw an impending climb to crest a pretty high hill on the last leg of the hike,  a pretty tired Lukas looked at me and asked "Can you carry me up the hill daddy?"

Of course being the sucker for a cute kid that I am, I grumbled a bit about having to carry an extra 45 pounds uphill, but obliged nonetheless and immediately felt good about my decision as my boy wrapped his arms around my neck and whispered "I love you daddy" into my ear.  Yeah, that's gold.

That good feeling didn't last too long though, as about 10 minutes later I was huffing and puffing up to the crest of the fairly steep incline.  As I set him gently down at the top, I bent over to catch my breath and looking at him I, only half jokingly, asked him "If daddy fell over right here and you couldn't get me to talk to you what would you do?

"Well, I would blow my whistle daddy." he responded referring to the one attached to his backpack.

"But, we haven't seen anyone on the trail in at least an hour buddy" I reasoned  "So what else could you do?". "I don't know" he raised his hands with a shrug.

This was not promising.

"Well, you would have to reach into my pocket buddy" I gave him my serious look "and pull out my phone."

And then he hit me with a response that reinforced the fact that I was raising a comedian.

"To play Angry Birds!?" he asked with a pretty big grin, before he broke into laughter.

I'm pretty sure he knew I meant to call 911.  If not, I guess those crazy birds would at least keep him occupied until someone happened along to stick a fork in me.