Have you ever gotten the feeling that you just want to go out and do something that you've never done before? Maybe, go on an adventure of some sort? Awaken the inner curious child? That's what I did with my friends a few days ago!

Apparently, there was supposed to be this beautiful national park just a few miles from my house. I found out about it in my Earth Science class my junior year in high school, and had gone into the dirt parking lot to practice driving and parking with my mom on a couple of occasions too, but I never actually went INTO the park. For some reason it just never occurred to me. So, when one of my friends asked what there was for us to busy ourselves with I got this over-whelming feeling of "Hey! You want to go outside and play! Just like you did when you were a younglin'!" Weird, I know. But we were tired of walking up to the little park just up the street and the tree with the huge rope swing was cut down at the other park we liked, so I suggested that we go and EXPLORE!

"Where would we explore?" My friends asked.

I started to get really excited once I got us all in the car because exploring in national parks and nature was something that my grandpa would take us to do when we came up to visit him, and he was really good at finding the coolest places. For instance, when he lived in Bishop, CA, he took my sisters and I to tons of old abandoned mines that were in the mountain sides. So. Much. Fun! Anyway, my friends and I make it over to the State Park and finally walk in.

This place is beautiful! Right when you walk past the gate you see green grass everywhere and path ways and an even bigger slope of a mountain in front of you. There was a path leading to the left going along a tree line and then eventually into it, and then there was a path to the right that looked to be going around the hills.

We chose to go to the left. Note: We didn't really come prepared, we thought that we would just take a walk around the place and then mosey on home which means that we had tennis shoes... and a box of hard candy. Was walking around what we did??? NO! We had FUN! Fun includes: swinging around on super cool tree limbs that would go up the tree, hang down to the forest floor, and then travel right up another tree trunk! And then we found ourselves walking up a slightly inclined path that went into the tree line next to a creek bed that was home to quite the abundance of salamanders. I moved one off of the path so that it wouldn't get stepped on even though I was very afraid of it.

When we reached the end of the creek bed, we heard from a very friendly passer-by that there were a couple of lakes up at the top of the hill. After a little bit of consideration and time-checking (we had to go to work in a few hours), we thought "Why not?" and trekked up the hill.

AT FIRST, we were doing great! We were definitely getting our ex-ercise for the day, but the path started getting steeper... and steeper... and steeper! It got to the point where we had to stop walking every so often because our legs were starting to feel like Jell-O. And then finally, the incline of the slope went down a bit and we were able to see a gate. Yes! Finally! The end of this trail was near! We quickly walked/wobbled toward the gate, eager to see what was next. It was amazing! All I could see was rolling hills for miles and tall grass, which, at the time, was a beautiful glowing golden color from the late afternoon sun. But you know what really caught my eye? A reflection! Not just any reflection. It was the reflection of sun-light off of a body of water.

A lake!! It had to be a lake!
I quickly ran down the little foot path that came by it and stopped. Haha, it wasn't really a lake, a pond, maybe, and it was gated off to keep people from destroying the little habitat that some amphibians were living in.

Even though I didn't find a lake (yet), I still enjoyed my little adven-ture of the day which leaves me dying to go back to the State Park because it was just so beautiful and brought out this crazy sense of energy that would keep me going everywhere in there if I had all day. In conclusion, if you are feeling restless, and bored of the usual activities that you do with friends, go to a park! It's random to do so but if it's something that you haven't done since you were a kid play-ing around on a play structure, you'll find that it will bring back a sense of energy! Well, at least for me it did. Haha, give it a try! Bring back your inner kid!