Trail Center and Bald Cypress Trail at First Landing State Park

Fall is one of my favorite times to get outdoors, so it's been a bummer that so many of the HRVA area national parks and sites are closed due to the government shutdown. Luckily, First Landing is a state park and is still open! And it's at its absolute prettiest right now.

Our playgroup met up there last week for the express purpose of visiting the new Discovery Room at the Trail Center. Unfortunately, the room was off-limits while staff cleaned and fed the animals, but luckily again, the trail center features some other great stuff to hold the little ones' attention, including a cool little exhibit on local flora and fauna, complete with a "please touch" area where we could stroke fur pelts and listen to seashells.



After we'd done a few turns around the exhibit, we went back outside to set off down the Bald Cypress trail, a mile-and-a-half-long boardwalk trail through a marshy wooded area. We didn't make it through the whole loop -- the kids stopped several times, to peer at a frog, climb a hill, and eat some trail mix. And pose for lots of pictures.

First Landing is beautiful in every season, but it really shines in late summer/fall, so much so that I'm adding it to our Fall Fun List as a must-see autumnal destination. What are your favorite spots/trails in the park? Have you made it to the Discovery Room? I'm determined to check it out, so I know we'll be back soon.

Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge

There's really only one time of year to visit the Great Dismal Swamp, and the time is now. In summer, the swamp tends to live up to its name: it's hot, dark, smelly, and the bugs. Oh, the bugs! By mid-May, the mosquitoes are out in swarms and they don't go away until October or November, and by then, things are pretty gray and flat and all of the singing frogs and birds have buried themselves in the mud or flown south for the winter.

But for a few weeks in early spring, the Dismal Swamp is like Goldilocks' porridge: juuuust right. Last Saturday just happened to fall in the right window and so that's when we visited. The trees were beginning to leaf out, but the branches were still bare enough to let in a little sun and warmth. The swamp seemed to be coming to life under our eyes. Everything was still and quiet, but with branches rustling and birds calling from the tree tops, it was one of the loudest silences I've ever heard.

The Great Dismal Swamp is huge, one of the last true wildernesses in the United States, and entrances for it scattered throughout Chesapeake, Suffolk, and northeastern North Carolina. After doing a little research, we settled on the Washington Ditch entrance in Suffolk. For a few reasons: first, the raised boardwalk trail seemed best for our little hiker. At a manageable 3/4-mile, it was a reasonable distance for Baby A. -- we knew that there was a good possibility that she'd be able to walk it without us having to carry her all the way back. Second, Washington Ditch is one of the only swamp entrances with bathrooms in the parking area, a boon that should not be discounted. Third, there have been very few black bear sightings (!) there recently. 

Anne enjoyed herself immensely. Who knew that toddlers were so keen on swamps? She listened hard for the bird and frog calls and mimicked each one; she found a stick and poked around in the murky water; she noticed every vine and leaf and amassed quite a collection of bright red maple seed pods. I enjoyed watching her watch everything -- there were honestly a lot of things I would have missed if I hadn't seen them through her eyes.

Sometime in the future, James and I would like to take Anne to hike the 4.5-mile Washington Ditch trail to Lake Drummond, one of the only two natural lakes in Virginia. The trail was surveyed by George Washington himself in 1775, and the placid ditch alongside was dug entirely by slave labor, a truly mind-boggling task once you see how long and wide it is and think about what that must have meant in the age before heavy-duty digging equipment was invented. We walked a little of the trail today, but it's going to be a long time before A. can manage the 9-mile trek in and out. Still, tween and teen hikers might be able to manage it, or younger kids, if there are bikes involved.

A word to the wise: any time you go into the Great Dismal Swamp, bring sunscreen and bug spray just in case, and be sure to plan for any eventuality -- cell phone service is spotty (at best) in the swamp. And remind your kids what poison ivy looks like. It's everywhere, all over the trees and creeping up the wood railings on the path in places. As the poet Thomas Moore reminds us his ballad, "The Lake of the Dismal Swamp," written in 1806, it really should be avoided at all costs:

Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds--

His path was rugged and sore,

Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,

Through many a fen, where the serpent feeds,

And man never trod before.

And, when on the earth he sunk to sleep

If slumber his eyelids knew,

He lay, where the deadly vine doth weep

Its venomous tear and nightly steep

The flesh with blistering dew!

Big Woods State Forest

Hunting season is right around the corner! So today we went to the woods to scout for deer. At least, that's why James went. Anouk and I were there because we want to live deliberately and suck out all the marrow from life. 

  
The Big Woods State Forest is located in Wakefield, Virginia, way out in Sussex County (It's about an hour and fifteen minute drive from the Ocean View area of Norfolk -- more with traffic). I had never heard of Wakefield before, but it turns out it's kind of a big deal when it comes to peanuts. The first peanuts in America were planted in the town, before it was a town, and peanut-flavored dishes are served in many of the town's restaurants. 

As you can also see, Wakefield is also kind of a big deal when it comes to reality TV stars. Peanuts and TV? How can that be anything other than a winning combination?

After we had tramped through the woods (and these were real woods, with very authentically woodsily overgrown trails, it should be noted), marked some deer tracks and had a snack, we drove around Sussex County for a while and saw the sights. One prominent one being miles and miles of fields of cotton in full bloom (does cotton bloom?) I have probably passed fields of cotton a million times before in my life, but this was my first in full bloom, and seeing a stretch of this gorgeous, purest white all the way to the horizon made me feel mindful of a lot of things. Of the great beauty in the world, the great work it would have taken to plant and tend and pick, and the great numbers of men and women who were made to plant and tend and pick it over hundreds of years. I think everybody should try to see a field of cotton in full bloom once in their lives, to feel these feelings.

Quote of the day:

ME: There's mud on my duck boots!

JAMES: They're duck boots...they can handle a little mud.

ME: I bought these duck boots for FASHION.

Some other things to see near Wakefield, VA:

-Virginia Diner (in Wakefield): featuring peanut pie and peanut dressing
-Miles B. Carpenter Museum Complex (in Waverly, VA): with a Victorian House, folk art and peanut museum.
-Country Store (in Waverly): You can buy bacon, fresh from the pig! And also hog jowls. But let's focus on the bacon.