Nature Girl

I've come to the realization that I am going to have to learn to love camping and fishing and general outdoorsiness.

Now I've been camping and fishing when I was younger. I liked sleeping in tents, it was an adventure. Except when it rained and the tent leaked. I've been fishing and had fun. Until I had to touch a fish, then it wasn't so fun. I like hiking. (Shut up Sonja, I do too.) Well I guess I should qualify that as I like hiking on our nice rolling glacial trails in Wisconsin not on suicidal mountain missions in the Rockies and the Adirondacks that my friends like to drag me on.

So I like nature. I have an appreciation for its beauty. Its just that if I am going on vacation, I would much rather stay in a city. A city with museums and restaraunts and shops. And hotels. Hotels with spas and room service if possible.

But my daughter is a nature girl at heart. She loves animals and bugs and dirt. And she would love to be as close as humanly possible to those things. When I am out gardening, she follows behind me looking for worms to play with. She makes leaf sandwiches for the ants to eat. She loves scampering along trails looking for chipmunks, squirrels and birds.



If she knew that you could go to the woods, sleep in a tent and be surrounded by nature, she would demand we go at once. Who cares about pillows and nice comfy beds when you can see animals and bugs?

So this summer we'll be taking small steps. Visiting nature centers, farms and lakes. We'll experiment, we'll get dirty, we'll get our feet wet. And hopefully I'll learn to love it as much as she does.