Day Two Hundred One

We are officially on Leaf Watch 2020. Both of the girls are obsessed with seeing leaves at the exact correct time, which means they're talking me into hikes all over the place.

It's too early, by the way. There's way more fall colors near our house than there is at any of the best places to watch leaves fall. Case in point: McConnells Mill is still pretty green.

But in the quest to see all of the leaves, there's a thing that I've noticed.

The girls would TOTALLY leave me in the woods to die.

The two of them have somehow become expert climbers. They're scaling up and down hillsides like they're nothing and then jumping across rocks and basically, they're going everywhere. Which, that's pretty awesome. I like that they're willing to go all in. BUT WAIT FOR ME, DORKS.

At the exact moment that the photo above was taken, I was standing on the edge of a giant rock, leaning back so I could frame the image just right, and teetering a little too close to the edge. Mila, the tiniest of the jerks, was all, "Just take a step back! It's fine!" and then giggled like a loon. Alexis, of course, agreed. They legit kept trying to convince me that it was safe for me to take a step backwards. LIARS.

It's fine that they'll help me fall into the river. Totally fine.

But on the way back to the car after that hike is when they showed they'll ditch me. It was getting dark, which is basically my nightmare. I'm fine with wandering miles in the woods when there is sunlight. Once it's dark, I turn into a complete wimp. I'm scared of the dark, okay? Go ahead and mock me. Just keep the lights on when you do it, please.

ANYWAY. They had Alexis' cell phone and were using it as a flashlight. They scurried ahead, Mila jumping on and off every possible rock because that's her thing, with Alexis helping her do it quickly. I was taking up the rear like a responsible parent who wants to make sure her kids get back to the car.

But then I tripped on a tree root. And dropped my phone. Which I was using as a flashlight. And it slid under some leaves, so I couldn't find it. I wasn't hurt or anything, but I was night blind in the middle of a freakin' forest.

Did the girls notice?

NO, THEY DID NOT. Not even for a second. They never once turned around to see if I was behind them. They had no idea that I was hundreds of yards behind and couldn't see a single thing.

I found my phone and eventually caught up to the little jerks, but still. JERKS. BOTH OF THEM.