Toddler Adventures at Scott’s Run Nature Preserve

My toddler is a little firecracker. She blazes a path, leaving no stone unturned. Every hole must be investigated. Every critter analyzed. And she does it in style. She dons her chosen dress for the day, pops on some stylish shoes, selects a ribbon, grabs a travel buddy (stuffed toy), and goes hiking. 

She loves hiking… for the first ¼ mile. Then I become her pack mule and have to carry her and her stuff. The hugs she gives me just rub in the uncanny feeling that I'm being used. In those brief moments of exploration before I become weighed down, she is full of wonder and excitement. The world is so novel and new and I hope it continues to feel that way to my daughter. To me, hiking has always felt that way and I know I could travel the world and never see it all before I die. So, every weekend we explore somewhere new in our area. I've lived in the NCR a cumulative 5 years and still haven't run out of places to see. It's one of the reasons I love the area so much. 

This particular hike at Scott's Run Nature Preserve was chosen so we could float my daughter's craft boat, hike, and maybe snag some decent forest photos. It was superb. The stream was right next to the parking lot and there was a perfectly manicured hiking trail. The wooden stairs, a fallen log, the way the rocks camp out in the stream, the way the light shines through the trees making the canopy glow, stepping stones for crossing the stream, some old brick structures, and a waterfall. I find the forest poetic seeing as I hiked every weekend as a child. We would have been there all day if I wanted to capture it all with my lens. Hence, Scott's Run was an instant favorite in my book - granted most hiking is for me. The clouds even created a natural soft box for even lighting - made for easy post processing. 

The way the morning unfolded turned out to be more adventurous than we expected. A boondoggle more like. We started by floating the boat at the stream. Upon getting bored of that, we proceeded to hike. And wow! Everywhere we went, Scott's Run was begging me for angles and images. I was crying on the inside when I was carrying my daughter, seeing nature’s beauty but unable to immortalize it with the DSLR. Pre-DSLR rabbit hole and pre-pregnancy, my Google photos filled with landscape shots that I still go back and stare at. How I didn't see photography in my future boggles my mind. 

As our party hiked and pondered the best return route, I spotted signs for a waterfall, red-zoned, and made a beeline for the falls. My spouse meanwhile reminded me “if you go down this hill, you'll have to carry our daughter back up it”. I in turn: “It's worth it.” Upon seeing the falls, I just had to get closer. Adventure was calling. The falls drew me in like a fly to a light. I strapped the camera up near my shoulder, clamped my daughter to my hip with an obi sash meant for ornamenting my dress, and trekked to the falls. My daughter was thrilled. I was exuberant. The falls waited patiently. In no rush to go anywhere. Even after reaching the foot of the waterfall, my daughter was so entranced, she kept trying to wade through the water to get closer. On the shore, she would pace back and forth like a wolf eyeing its prey. She was rewarded with a slow slip into the water. After securing the camera on the shore, I caved and carried my now soaked child to the waterfall so she could touch the spray. She wanted to shower in the falls and was disappointed when I let her do no such thing and we returned back to the main hiking trail. 

My toddler, of course, became dead weight after passing out on my back. I got a very good workout carrying her all the way back to the truck. It really was all worth it, though. My little hiking buddy is now in awe of all waterfalls.