You know me and my impromptu road trips. I saw a park on Instagram I wanted to explore with the boys. There was a walking trail that led to a waterfall. I couldn’t wait!

Cedar Falls Park. Have you heard of it? It’s a historical park, so I even saved JP’s school for the afternoon because I knew it would be full of history and science.

The trip was doomed from the moment we got in the car. Everything in me screamed, “turn around! Stay home,” but I was determined to see the waterfall. The Greenville area is full of waterfalls, how had I missed this one?!

Thirty seconds out of the driveway, everyone decided they were hungry. Fine. The logical thing to do was to hit the Chick Fil A drive thru. Eating out is the obvious choice when you have food at home.

I don’t remember how long we were sitting in the drive thru before I noticed I wasn’t wearing shoes.

You read that right. I left the house with no shoes. (No defense except that I normally have at least two pair of shoes in each of the three cars I drive). This day there were no shoes in the floorboard under the gas pedal.

After we got our food (shout out to Chick Fil A and their efficient lines), we drove back home to grab my tennis shoes. Every parent knows what happened next. “I gotta use the bathroom!” someone screamed from the back seat.

Fifteen minutes later, we’re finally back on the road. The park is forty five minutes from home. It took us about an hour because we, being smarter than the GPS, knew a better way.

Excitement rose as we got closer to the new park and I was actually able to forget the bedlam that preceded our departure.I saw the historical markers as we pulled into the gravel parking lot. The kids immediately spotted the playground and hopped out of the car as we gathered the camera, notebooks and other necessities for our walk along the paved path to the new waterfall. My heart sank as I read the map posted on the trail. The walk to the waterfall and back was a little over a mile. This would not have been an issue if we’d done our homework and allowed enough time to see the waterfall and be ready to leave the park before the gates closed at dusk! Fearing the worst (that we’d actually get locked in the parking lot), we decided to leave the waterfall for another day.

The boys were perfectly happy playing on the playground. The adults had to come to grips with the fact that we’d driven an hour, one way, to play on a playground. Even this wouldn’t be so tragic if there wasn’t a bigger, better playground less than a mile from our house.

And I could have gone barefoot!