Sleeping Giant

One of our favoritest places to go in the whole wide world is Sleeping Giant. It's a state park about 15 minutes from where we live and it's such a fun place to hike. I've been going with mom and dad since I was knee high and today was Mitch's first time.

This is Sleeping Giant. Can you see the Giant's head, chest and legs? He's lying down. The park is in Hamden, Connecticut - the town where my dad grew up. He actually played on this mountain as a boy and after all these years, he's still coming back!

We're ready to get going! Mom's filled the cooler with lots of water and ice and Mitch is forever clinging to me like glue! He's not sure about all of these new adventures yet. I've told him this is one adventure he's going to LOVE!!!

Here we are just starting out on the trail. There are sure some great smells!

What a great day for a hike! The weather is just beautiful! Dad is lagging behind getting a shot of mom and me and Mitch. It's a cool morning. The temperature overnight was 35 degrees - still pretty chilly but by day's end it's in the mid-60's or close to 70 degrees!

This is dad and Mitch ahead of us. Sleeping Giant is loaded with Mountain Laurel, Connecticut's state flower, but unfortuately, it's not in bloom just yet! The Laurel's are the bushes with the crooked trunks.

Dad calls this portion of the hike - sheer face. There are a lot of accidents that happen here with people trying to climb these rocks and someone slips! We've caught the ambulance here once already!Ahhhhhhhhhhhh just what we needed - a nice drink of ice cold mountain water!

We're almost at the top! Only a few more steps!

There's a castle at the top of the Giant. Most of the time we don't go inside. We didn't this time either but when Putter comes with us for a hike one of these times, we'll go up to the very tippity top for sure if she wants to so she can see the splendid view. Here's dad posing with us!

Mitch was lucky enough to find a banana peel up here! ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww gross! He'll pick up anything!

Here we are at the top catching our breath before we start the trip back down. This is just outside the castle.

This is the last leg before we get back to the bottom. It normally takes us about 1 1/2 hours to climb the Giant. These steps are actually a recent addition. It was sorta fun watching Mitch try to navigate them seeing as he hasn't done stairs in the house yet!

We had a surprise waiting for us at the bottom. Look what mom found and pointed out to us! It's a tennis ball and not only is Mitch hogging all the water but he decided that the ball was his too! That's the tip of my tail in the picture! Mitch is most probably thinking about biting it!

We had a great hike up Sleeping Giant! Both of us can't wait to go back and do it again!

Until next time..................

Love ya lots,

Maggie