Dog Vs Cliff (hiking the Y in Provo)

We went hiking today as a family. We had this grand idea to get out and be active as a family. Let me define active. This means doing something more strenuous than walking to the playground that is 20 feet away from our front door. So even if we somehow manage to walk down to the creamery for some ice cream, we feel justified in the 300+ calorie snack because we walked off -50 calories walking there.

So we decided to be real ambitious and hike the Y today. The Y is about a mile up a mountain with switchbacks and stuff. Since it was memorial day there were a lot of people with the exact same idea. I'm just glad that we decided to start at 8:30 am instead of noon (which is when we finished). We didn't do any research, we just did it. No idea of elevation, how strenuous it was or anything. By the time we hit the first switch back we knew we were screwed. You would think we were finished a marathon with how much the family was wheezing. At this point Lukas turned to Kara and said "I'm tired, will you carry me?" Luckily Kara had the ergo baby carrier and he could just jump in the back. I was already outfitted with the Kelty pack with Mollie, all the water, the snacks, my camera, and anything that Nikki had brought with her and didn't want to carry. So I'm good, no need of a break, water, or anything.

We sweat our way to the top (and when I say the top, I mean the bottom of the Y, it was a shorter trip) spend a few moments up there enjoying the view, and start down. Now here is where the title of this story comes in to play.

For those of you who know my kids, specifically my eldest, you know that they (she) is horribly afraid of animals, especially animals that are alive. Like seriously Nikki won't go into a room if there is a fly buzzing around. Ridiculous I know. Lukas has a legitimate fear of ants, because when he was little he sat on an ant farm and they all crawled out and covered his entire body and bit him and stuff. Not a fun day at the Klc household then.

Anyway, Nikki is scared of dogs, so as we are going down, a lady is walking up with a small little terrier type dog, and Nikki flips out and runs, not down the hill, but towards the cliff, and is trying to go over it to get away from the dog. I grab her before her panic can doom her and hold her tight while she is screaming about this stupid little dog the size of a football. I was so mad and scared at the same time. We had to stop and talk right then and there. The crazy thing is Nikki didn't even realize that she was running towards a cliff, she just knew that there was a dog there and wanted to get as far away as possible.

We had a good long talk about Nikki's problem and about how she needs to handle these situations.
Sorry this post isn't very funny, but as far as advice goes, before you go anywhere outside with a little girl or boy who is afraid of animals, come up with a plan for when you do run across something that breaths, and go over it with the child so that they don't panic at the sight of the first thing with four legs.

On a side note, I think we saw Kyle Whittingham hiking the trail too.

This was us right before the hike. Notice how I am carrying almost everything on my back.

 Here is Kara with Lukas on her back. Lukas is eating an apple sauce to keep up his strength.

At the bottom serif of the Y.

Mollie was given exactly three feet of moving room or else she would have plummeted to the bottom of the mountain.

Here's my boy Lukas being all adventurous.

Had to hike up to get Nikki. She is really adventurous at this point. Five minutes before when she was tired of hiking she was berating me for what a lousy idea it was to hike up to the Y.
As we were heading down the mountain she asked when we could do it again.

Had to have a picture of me and Lukas on the Y.

The view from the Top.

I actually really had a good time and I feel real good about my time. I wore my GPS watch and averaged 26 miles per hour. Of course I forgot to turn it off when we got back in the car and drove to the Riverwoods shopping center for some burgers and a Dole Pineapple float, but I still feel good about myself.