~ Casper and Silvia Meet Up for a Hike ~
A gorgeous walk on the Lief Erikson – Wildwood Loop Trail in Forest Park turned up a bevy of banana slugs and cute little snails. Turns out my hiking partner, Casper, has a real eye for finding these resilient little creatures! By the way, if you sign up on the form at the bottom of this page or any of my blog pages, you’ll get a notification in your inbox when I publish a new one. I leave for the Camino on September 6th and am getting more excited – if that’s even possible – each and every day!
Casper and I haven’t seen one another for quite some time. He’s been away at college on the east coast. Casper came to my school ages ago to train martial arts and stuck around long enough to become an excellent instructor, a joyful camp counselor, a wonderful member of the school community, and a skilled black belt. I appreciated having the boundless time of a 10-mile hike to get caught up. We chatted and walked merrily through the deep green beauty of the forest for hours.
Casper found a tiny weeny little baby slug!
Back in the day when Casper and my kids were also tiny and wee, they would all lick banana slugs. When you do that, it makes your tongue go numb. I think it’s a rite of passage for kids in Oregon.
We also saw some cute little squirrels and heard songbirds everywhere.
Most of the slugs we saw were big like this one – as big as Casper’s foot.
There were lots of runners out on the morning of our hike. If we got the chance, we’d warn them to watch their step. One runner stopped so she could scoop a slimy cutie up and toss it off the trail. One runner claimed to be a slug-crushing magnet. Apparently, her superpower is smushing slugs by mistake on her runs.
We took to high-fiving all the runners as they passed us and decided we were their cheering squad. We even got invited to be honorary members of a running club and to jump in on their group photo.
Casper is a very creative soul and I got to hear all about his writing and drawing projects as well as lots of updates about college life.
It makes me happy to know Casper’s out in the world doing his thing.
There were also some gorgeous wildflowers all along the way. Here are a couple.
There’s nothing like a walk through a deep green forest dappled with sunlight chatting and laughing and seeing all the creatures.
Check out this sweet little snail!
