Hotter than the Devil's Barbecue

I biked to work this morning before it warmed up, but by the time we too the kids out looking for bugs near Fort Stedman it had become oppressively hot and humid. The ambient temperature today is about 94 degrees. Tomorrow it will be 100 and the day after will be 103. We will be taking the kids outside every one of those days. The challenge today on our short but hike was to keep them drinking water. They ran around chasing grasshoppers but complained when I told them to stop and drink water. 

I'm sort of looking forward to moving back to Pittsburgh in a few weeks where the temperature seldom gets above the cool 90s. Here the grass is getting crunchy and dying. The only marginally cool places on the battlefield are deep under the pine trees or down near the streams (some of those are starting to dry up too however). Most tourists sadly ignore the park's many wooded trails and stick close to the tour road where they broil but the walking is easy and they can make a dash for their air conditioned SUVs. 

I remembered an idea from class this past year that I put to good use with the kids today. I printed lots of paper butterflies and colored them to match various parts of our classroom. If the kids could find a butterfly (and some were very well camouflaged) they could turn it in for a ticket. At the end of the week we draw tickets to give out small prizes. To my astonishment they found all the butterflies today although they did have a hard time with a few of them. They seemed to genuinely enjoy the game though. I intend to re-hide them tomorrow with a few extras. 

I'm still working on writing that Night Hike program. Not telling if it will get final approval or if anyone will sign up for it even if they do.