We know it’s important for Ellie to be in nature, preferably more wild than not (i.e. sometimes exploring a stream, not playing on a playground all the time).  We took our first “hike” with her on Sunday at Double Rock Park.  It’s inside the Beltway, less than 10 minutes from our house, but we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves in a relatively wild feeling woods that was pretty quiet, even though we could see buildings in the distance.  I’m sure we’ll be back and unless we find out that it’s a bad idea (i.e. the water is contaminated), we’ll be going there to play in the stream too (in a year or two)!