Sugarloaf Mountain

With the weather so beautiful this morning, we headed over to Sugarloaf Mountain. It's only a 25-minute drive from our house, and there's no entry fee. You just drive part-way up the mountain, find a place to park, and start hiking on one of the trails.

First we had to have a picnic lunch. Evelyn was so excited about climbing on the rocks around the picnic area that she only ate half of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich, half her Cheetos, and half her juice box. While rock climbing, she found a spider, which Troy announced was a daddy long-legs. A few moments later, Evelyn found another similar-looking spider, but she proclaimed this spider was a mommy long-legs.

Since we've been here before, we knew exactly which trail to take. We parked at the West View parking lot, which is where the green trail starts. The green trail has stairs that lead to the peak. When we were here in May, we took a different trail (orange) to the peak, and it was a little more than I could handle. With Julia being bigger and heavier this time around, I didn't want any vertical climbs.

Once we reached the peak, Evelyn looked out over the trees and river spread out before us and asked, "Is that Nebraska?" This question got quite a few chuckles from other people around us. Even after we clarified that we were looking at Maryland and Virginia, Evelyn asked where Nebraska was.

After the descent, we snacked on monkey muffins (yes, we have made that recipe again!) before heading home. It's nice to be so close to a beautiful place to picnic and hike. We can't wait to come back when the leaves change colors in the fall!