First Park Quest of 2012: Cedarville

 A couple of weeks ago, we went on our first Park Quest of 2012. The boys are much more involved in choosing where we quest this year. They know where we are on the map and seem to enjoy researching quests and locations. They pored over my laptop and the three of us debated the pros and cons of each option.

After extensive consideration, we chose Cedarville State Forest for our first quest because 1) it's within an hour of our house 2) the quest was marked "easy" and 3) we enjoyed our letterbox quest last year. This year's quest was another letterbox adventure, but with updated directions. We had the option of a basic quest (finding two boxes) or a bonus quest (finding all four).  It was hot and we were all a little sniffly, so we decided to wimp out and complete the basic quest.

Boys at the trail head.

Cedarville is such a beautiful, peaceful place. The gentle woodland trails remind me of my grandparent's woods.

 The boys seem to enjoy it too. As I've mentioned in several previous posts, our normal hiking order is Matt half jogging, half walking out front followed by me pulling Gabe. On this hike, however, Gabe took the lead!

Taking his first turn as trail leader.

We found our first letterbox with ease and moved to the second area for letterbox number two. Our instructions said we would walk past a beaver's dam.  We knew we were getting close when saw trees like this:

It wasn't long after we saw the lodge.

It was a pleasant, but slightly longer hike to the second letterbox. We were counting our steps and looking for the circle that would mark our way when a deer ran across our path.  We watched her bound into the trees and saw not only the marker we were looking for, but the second letterbox!

Park Quest 1 - complete!