In honor of Father's Day coming up on Sunday, June 16th, I will be featuring three outdoor father's favorite experiences with their children. Last up! My husband, Jesse Avery enjoys the outdoors through hiking, backpacking, camping, cycling, traveling and almost anything you put in front of him. Jesse is an electrical engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area during the day and a great outdoors man during his free time.

I hesitate to call our backpacking trip to Point Reyes National Seashore my favorite outdoor experience but there was just so much about that adventure that was exciting and meaningful, and hey, if it was my favorite it was my favorite.

Outdoors or indoors I love seeing my kids discovering something. I remember my own joy as a kid when I learned how to fish, swim, and jump off of big rocks into big rivers. I still remember the first time that I saw Yosemite Valley as an adult and the awe I felt. Watching my two children see new things and learn different bugs, and plants, and sights and sounds and skills in the outdoors lets me experience that joy and awe all over again, and helps remind me what a magnificent world we live in.

Malakawena Beach, Big Island, Hawaii

This is not related to the Point Reyes trip – but the first time I realized what a pleasure discovery is was when we took David to the Big Island. He was nine months old; we went to the beach and took him into the ocean for the first time.

When he first got in the water he was nervous, and went stiff as a board when the water first hit his chest. Then he got curious and splashed a little and got some in his mouth, he made a face, then smacked his lips and splashed again, fear very quickly giving way to joy, and so he spent most of the afternoon happily splashing around in the Pacific Ocean, swallowing who knows how much and giggling so much it hurt me to watch. Jthat same dayust watching him experience the ocean for the first time reminded me just how great the ocean is.

Now back to Point Reyes and staying with the beach theme: David and Sophia love the beach and the sand and the ocean so much that when we went to the Wildcat Camp beach on the second day they would let nothing stop them from enjoying it. The beach is such a great place and it is worth any price to play in the sand and the water that both kids got naked and played for more than an hour in conditions so cold that Melissa and I had to wear our sweaters and huddle together for warmth. At one point David was sliding on his belly through the sand for warmth because putting on his clothes would mean play time is over and he wasn't ready for that. That’s how much fun the beach is, as an adult I have evidently forgotten that fact.

Wildcat Camp Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore

On our way down to the beach that same day I remember we found a field of ferns and other dense, low green plants still covered in morning dew. There were butterflies flying around, the air was pretty still and the sun was just starting to break through the fog, Sophia stopped her walk and went up to the ferns to just stand there and stare. The whole scene was so beautiful and alien to her I thought she must be thinking it was a fantasy landscape out of one of her Tinkerbell movies and I figured as she was standing there that she was imagining of herself as a little fairy princess. Just another moment I understood just how beautiful and powerful some places can be for the imagination.

Being outdoors with nowhere to be and no one to see provides a little more time to letting David ‘help’ as well, also known as learning new skills. David is in this phase, which I honestly hope he never grows out of, where he wants to do everything I’m doing. If daddy is riding his bike then David has to ride his bike, if daddy is making pancakes then David has to be on a chair cracking eggs and stirring the batter, if daddy is kicking a soccer ball, then David needs to kick a soccer ball, you get the idea. Anyway he saw that I was lighting a match to start the stove to make food and coffee, so he had to help. So at first when he wanted to help I held his hand and showed him how to light the match and put it up to the stove to light the burner, then I just sat next to him and talked him through it. He had some trouble getting enough speed on the match to make it light, but he figured it out, he burned his fingers a couple of times when he let the match burn down too far before he put it to the stove, but again he figured it out. So after the first night whenever it was time to cook David lit the match and helped me light the burner.

There are of course other aspects of camping where ‘helping’ doesn’t work quite so well. When we first arrived at camp and were setting up our tents David wanted to help, specifically spiking down the tent… For a little boy the joy of hitting things outweighs the joy of setting something up. I use my boots as a hammer in the back-country when a hammer is necessary, David followed suit and hit the tent spikes, the tent, the table, the other tent, his dad, his little sister, and then the tent again. At one point he barreled into the tent so hard that he caved half of it in and I thought a pole was going to snap and I’d be sleeping under the stars, but the tent survived.

Another reason I love being with the kids outside – I get to spend time with them. Melissa was very tired on the final day, so she refused to carry Sophia and Sophia refused to walk, so I got to carry my daughter pretty much the whole five hours back to the car from camp. I rarely get to spend time with her since if Melissa is within sight then dad is nothing by chopped liver… Anyway we spent time looking at flowers, singing all of her favorite songs (Barney, Veggie Tales and the Bunny Song…), looking at banana slugs, greeting other hikers and then exploring Divide Meadow. That was probably the most time I've spent that close to Sophia ever, and it wasn’t magical, or earth shattering, but it was very nice and in general hiking with them provides me that opportunity with both kids, which again is very nice.

All that said - it’s a lucky Saturday when I get to spend all day with my family and this adventure in Point Reyes let us spend three whole days together finding plants and bugs and critters and water and sand and all sorts of other fascinating bits of the outdoors.

At any rate – I think my favorite part of being outdoors with the kids is watching them experience new things and learn how to be just a little bit more self-sufficient – hiking 20 minutes more on their own, finding a cool bug on their own, building a tent, or a fire. I look forward to spending as many years as possible hiking around California, the USA and maybe even the world with them.... - Jesse -

Chasqui Mom Note: A little ode to the father of my children.

HAPPY FATHERS DAY!

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