Our visit to the Quechee Gorge was one of my favorite moments of our whole Vermont trip. The mile hike down to the bottom of the Gorge was perfect for kids and full of quiet, easy beauty for the adults.
Down at the bottom, heaven presented itself in the form of water and rocks. Water and rocks…a magical pairing for our boys right up there with peanut butter and jelly.
This is when it got a little tricky. Jeremy and I always push the limits a bit when we travel with the kids. We want them to be wowed. We want them to have a blast. We don’t want to end up in the hospital.
We also don’t want every experience to be a series of no’s. The boys are at the age where they want to do everything themselves, but we bring them into places that are not exactly child-proof. At the gorge, they wanted to run from pool to pool, not minding the slippery rocks one bit.
After a stressful start, we discovered something that day. There are two ways to hold hands with your children. You can grab their hands, holding them back. Or you can let them lead you, holding on tight enough that you can catch them if they fall.
That morning at Quechee Gorge, we stopped saying no, and started saying take me where you want to go.
And that made all the difference in the world.
