Trail Mix and a Brave Adventure with my guys (Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, near Olympia, Washington)

Every so often I get a whole day with my guys all to myself. I let the dishes pile up. I leave the little messes to figure themselves out until after the kids go to bed. And I plot some ridiculous adventure. And we go.

On days like these we’ve ended up at the Northwest Trek or waiting in line to feed elephants at the Woodland Park Zoo.  We’ve ridden the ducks or headed for fishing and shopping adventures. This time I wanted to see if I could do something a little less spendy and a little bit more back to nature. The guys thought we should go to the Olympia Children’s Museum.

But I had heard about something in Olympia that also sounded pretty cool.  I think this adventure was inspired by some memories we had from Refiel Bird Sanctuary up in British Columbia and I was curious if we had one here.

And then I found the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. So I piled up all the leftover snack bags of goldfish, peanuts, m and ms and craisins on the table and had the kids mix them up and make us trail mix bags while I figured out if going to this place was a sensible plan for the day. I had left over tortillas so I peanut buttered and jammed them up too so we could lunch if we were stuck out on the trail.

And off we went for the hike.  I just put the name “Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge into our GPS and it got us there just fine. The trip was about an hour from our house in Seattle and  3 dollars to park the car and we stopped at the visitors center for maps and bathroom and asked about the paths that would be the best for one mama and her two five-year-olds.

We decided to a do a few miles to do the boardwalk trail and a little bit of the trek out on a dyke.  The guys got pretty tired, but we saw so many neat birds and animals and they liked that there were signs and telescopes and places to stop.

We saw birds and baby geese.

We searched for frogs.

Someone told us where to find a snake,

And we noticed a deer nibbling on some grass.

We want to come back here with the hubby.  I love that there is a table that shows you the seasons of wildlife on the Nisqually Refuge website because I didn’t realize so many animals were out there in our wilderness and I really want to see a beaver or a mink the next time we visit.  And even though I fully exhausted myself and the guys it was so fun just hanging out together in nature and it was rewarding to see that we had such a memorable adventure without spending a lot,  I felt like one terifically brave mama for taking my kids out into the wilderness by myself and I think this hike has given me a lot of confidence for our next adventures together too!

(Have you been here?  And if so, what kind of wildlife did you see when you visited?)

Terumi

Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys.  She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live.  She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)