Hudson Highlands Nature Museum

Well this was supposed to be fun. It looked like fun. This museum has "Discovery Quests" on the weekends where you buy these guidebooks and then go on some marked trails and fill in the book and stuff. There are four trails, Pond Quest, Field Quest, Woodland Quest, and Hiking Quest. Super fun right? Well not if one of your kids happens to be Mary in a really really bad mood. Okay, it wasn't completely horrible...but kind of. Emma was really sweet and patient, she didn't fuss once about walking. She said it was hot but she didn't say it in a fussy drama voice so wahoo.

We chose the Field Quest because this huge group just went on the pond one and it was pretty crowded over there. I guess the first mistake was completely mine...I misread the map right at the beginning and actually took us on the wrong trail (in my defense the red flag I was supposed to find really was marking the wrong trail). But I figured it out quick and we retraced our steps. We did see some cool flowers and stuff. Once we were on the right trail I thought things would get better. Mary had already been doing some pretty significant fussing at me. The thing is, they didn't get better. At all.

The trail was only 1/2 mile on completely flat ground. It was pretty much a big path someone had mowed through a field. The guidebook was alright...some of the things were fun like circling different plants we can see and listening for sounds. The "Quest" part is filling in these rhymes and then doing a word puzzle at the end. Half of these rhymes Emma could not get at ALL. And some of them weren't even rhymes. So that was a little lame. But some of the activities were good. And I would like to do the other ones sans Mary completely hating me. Don't let her cute smile fool you in some of these pictures...they all involved some sort of bribe (she's holding marshmallows in the one of her by herself). Mostly I carried her on the trail and the girl is HEAVY. Solid little thing. On the way home we played "What was your favorite part of our outing?" And Emma said she liked finding the flowers and doing the rhymes. Mary said, "You have to help me...I can't remember."

There is also another part of this museum with exhibits, it is about 1/2 a mile away and at this point it was get home. But I'd like to go try that too.

This was on the wrong trail...but Emma didn't mind. She was trailblazing for us.

Please note the look of joy on Mary's face here...this was her face for almost the whole time

Please notice the marshmallow bribe

This was about 2 minutes after we got there...no one had cried yet.

Bear Mountain State Park - New York

Tom and I took the girls to Bear Mountain State Park, something I've been wanting to do since we got here. It was a lovely day so out came the bug spray and the map and we were off. Our first stop (after getting a few extra maps) was the playground. It was so lovely right on the water. The kids couldn't get over how many people were fishing (Hessian Lake is fishing and rowboats only).

After a bit of fun there we headed on the trail to take us to the Zoo and the Trailside Museums. It was a nice walk...lots of shade, lots of people but there was so much room it didn't feel all that crowded. We had to go though a tunnel under the road and we walked past a big huge beach entry pool! It's not open for a few weeks still but that is going to be some good times. I forgot to mention the snake we saw just off the path...Emma screamed but it was all good. Just past the pool was the entrance to the zoo. When I say entrance, I mean a box that says "one dollar donation per person suggested." So we put our money in the slot and began our walk. The Trailside museums were these plaquards everywhere describing trees, animals, and other information about Bear Mountain. Emma loved reading them and Mary actually kept asking her to read more. The zoo is really small...but cool. Almost all of the animals were raised in captivity or injured. In fact, by each animal it said, if applicable, how the animal was hurt. Most of them were car and gunshot wound. In the zoo we saw porcupines, a bobcat, coyotes, foxes, bears (3 of them!) all kinds of frogs and snakes, an otter, owls, turkey vultures, and a bald eagle. Man is that bird beautiful. This one has a permament wing injury and can no longer fly. It makes me so sad to see that amazing bird, so powerful and grounded.

One nifty little sidenote, the Bear Mountain Zoo is actually on the Appalachian trail which is marked by a white rectangle. In fact, the Bear Den at Bear Mountain Zoo is the lower point on the whole 2000 mile trail (120 feet above sea level). I have photographic evidence to prove it but I won't trouble you all with it.

After walking the trail, we ate lunch at an awesome snack bar and rode on the lovely indoor Merry-Go-Round. Emma rode the bear but Mary insisted on a horse. Then the girls ate those crazy huge rocket popsicles and it was back to the car.

The last thing we did was drive up to Perkins Memorial and seeing the Hudson from the top of the mountain from this huge tower. Then we headed back down. By this time Emma had passed out in the car and Mary was close. Such a fun day. Highly recommended!