Hiking Beads

Hi! Welcome back. You've caught me bopping around in my Jeep. Hop in and let me tell you about the joys of hiking with your family! It is so nice to disappear into the woods with your family, wander trails, off trails, chat and watch wildlife. And all without the distractions of TV and video games! When Matt and I hike we are offered the opportunity to really talk. I find out what he thinks and see things through his eyes (video on Aspergers "Through My Eyes"~> You'll need a tissue or two! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HwDXoHnVxY,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGCrzmJfwcE&feature=related ) If you have a child with Aspergers, as I do, then you realize this time together is crucial and these glimpses into who he really is are rare treasures. Another great advantage of hiking is the opportunity to pretend. Maybe we are hiking on an island we landed on, exploring and looking for a spot to build our tree house? Maybe zombies are attacking and we have to stay alert with binoculars at hand quietly listening for their hungry footsteps? Maybe we are Israelites wandering in the wilderness? Our make-believe hikes go way too quickly! Now, if you are wondering about our strings of colorful beads, those are 'Hiking Beads'. 'Hiking Beads' are something I created so the boys in Lockport Cub Scout Pack 61 could visually track the miles they hiked. Every distance is a differnet color, so one mile is white, two is yellow, etc... I lways round up for beads, so they simply get the next color.  Even if a hike was 1.1 miles, they received a two mile bead. It made tracking more fun as it is so neat to see the miles add up! For each scouting rank I used a larger wooden bead. The blue you see in the picture was for Matt's Bear Scout rank~ he hiked all the miles above that bead as a Bear Cub Scout! The green wooden bead was for Webelos I rank~ Matt was a hiking maniac! The yellow wooden bead was for Webelos II rank~ we did hike (and some are not recorded with beads yet), just not as much as we were busy working on rank requirements and Matt did transitional classes most of the summer. Although Matt is moving on to Boy Scouts, we will continue to track our hikes privately. It will be fun to watch the beads accumulate as he goes on toward Eagle Scout. Fun to compete (gently) to see who takes more hikes and who hikes the farthest!! Go Hiking!

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