WOLF School

Last week I had the perfect opportunity to return to WOLF School as a naturalist. I had 15 really cool kids from a Montesorri school come and visit. We had the camp to ourselves, it was really nice. On Monday I took them and their many awesome parents on a short hike into the redwoods and to the rhododendron garden at Monte Toyon. They really enjoyed getting inside the hollow redwood tree, seeing banana slugs, and learning about the albino redwoods. It was an early day for me and a long day, and I had fun getting back out there on the trail and playing with kids. I was so tired by the end of the evening I almost had a total melt down. I just don't have the endurance to move around that much these days.
Then, on Tuesday I met them at Natural Bridges State Park Beach. We collected beach treasures, made sand creatures with interesting adaptations, went on a solo hike, made friends with poison oak - a lot of poison oak, and visited the tide pools. That was a lot of walking for me and my knee started to hurt. I was grateful when it was over, but also would have loved to spend a whole week with those kids, they were really neat lil ones.
It was really nice to be out there doing what I love. I wish I could be doing it all the time, but after two days it was clear that I'm not quite ready to head back for reals. I will be however helping out with running a program in May. That should be easier because I won't need to be on the trails which will help me to conserve my energy. I hope the weather is really awesome when I go back. Camp Rocks!