My oldest son was 7 years old when he finally expressed to me how inadequate our family was. Often, we took a hike with a little sibling who couldn’t handle a lengthy trek and began whining. Regularly, we ran into lunchtime, and the granola bars or cheese sticks or raisins I had packed were insufficient.
The biggest problem was that on every walk, we covered half the territory we should have — because at some point, we needed to turn back, in order to return home or to the car.
We are blessed that, although we definitely live in suburbia, we have tons of woods nearby. We have so much that deer and foxes regularly end up in our yard. We also live right down the road from beautiful botanical gardens, called Brookside Gardens, which is built into a massive (for the suburbs) wooded park called Wheaton Regional Park.
That’s why, over Thanksgiving break 2015, I planned a long, one-way walk, and spawned one of my favorite family traditions: The seven-mile hike. Nothing else was scheduled for the day. We would pack a lunch and plenty of water. And we would have someone pick us up at the endpoint.
On the day after Thanksgiving, my 9-year-old, my 7-year-old, and I ventured out the front door and walked 6.79 miles, down our street, through Brookside Gardens, through Wheaton Regional Park, down the Northwest Branch Trail, across the creek to Rachel Carson Trail, ending up at Colesville Road, to a strip mall called the “Shoppes of Burnt Mills,” where we all got coffee and hot cocoa. It was nap time for the babies and my wife when we arrived, and so we called an Uber home.
My wife joked that we had walked more than three hours to get to Starbucks.
The seven-mile hike is our family’s Black Friday tradition. I take along all kids who are aged 7 or older. “Seven years old for seven miles,” is the slogan my kids have come up with. Seven-year-olds or nearly-year-olds all look forward to their first hike with excitement that rivals a birthday. The older kids all spend November expressing their skepticism that the young’un can handle the trip. Sure enough, there’s some grousing and whining from the 7-year-olds, but this year, I reminded the 13-, 11-, and 9-year-olds that they all got a bit cranky and tired on their first seven-mile hike.
While the route is now very familiar, we occasionally lose the trail, which adds to the adventure. Every year, it stirs up slightly cloudy memories from their young brains.
“Ooh, I recognize that gully! That’s the one I fell into crossing the log one year.” “No, it just looks like it.”
“Isn’t this where we saw the kingfisher one year?” “It was two years in a row! I wonder where the kingfisher is now.”
We collect all sorts of leaves, and sometimes, the kids keep a nature journal to record the species of animals we see. Weird mushrooms, stunning moss, and intriguing tree bark are our diversions.
One year, we saw a fox stalking a chicken coop that backed up to the woods. Another year, we encountered a party that had shot a deer and was trying to track its blood trail. Every year, we run into friendly dogs. The jackpot was the time we arrived at Starbucks, and the pet store next door was doing a puppy adoption event.
Crossing creeks on fallen logs, eating a snack on a creek bed, or eating lunch on two massive boulders are the mainstays of the hike. We carve our initials in the bark of the same beech tree, along with the date, each year. We always pray the rosary as soon as we cross the bridge over the Northwest Branch.
There are inevitably spats and complaints (“But I already carried the heavy backpack!” “She keeps cutting in front of me!”) and occasional injuries. Also, my wife has pointed out that if we took no wrong turns, the hike would be closer to 6 miles. But it is a highlight of the year, and so far, even my teenagers still brag about it to teachers and friends.
We’ve had to move the date a bit later if we’ve traveled for Thanksgiving or if the weather was too miserable. But I can’t think of a better way to spend the day. (Especially since we all have extra calories stored up.) I know different families have different Thanksgiving weekend traditions, but I would endorse the long hike for any family that can pull it off. It’s sad that now it requires us to divide and conquer, with my wife staying at home with the little ones. But she typically plans some make-up activity for them. Also, the age requirement turns this into a sort of rite of passage.
And to date, we’ve resisted adding friends or even cousins to this outing. I love gatherings with friends and cousins, and over Thanksgiving, we get tons of that. This is a chance for nuclear-family bonding rather than the consumerism that the American media foist onto “Black Friday.”
And it will be even better in three years when all eight of us, my bride included, can partake in this tradition.
