Wesselman Woods with the Cousins

On Thursday morning of the cousin's visit, Kirsten and I loaded up the boys and headed into Evansville to visit Wesselman Woods Nature Preserve. This preserve is very unique as it sits right in town near the major across-town highway. It is a 200 acre property of untouched old-growth timber, and has over 6 miles of trails. There are many champion trees in this forest, and many of the trees are over 100 feet tall. The day was overcast and gloomy, and while hiking, we felt some raindrops. Jeremy said it actually rained pretty hard, but because the preserve is so dense, we hardly got wet!

When we first arrived, we checked out the Nature center. They have a lot of hands-on activities that the boys enjoyed. Below you will see Gavin getting a kiss from a bear puppet and Trevor playing with pieces of wood. After exploring in the Nature Center, we headed out on the trails. They are very well taken care of and were easy to manuever the stroller. Don't have any pictures of Evan, but he enjoyed the bumpy ride without one complaint. We did two trails that took us up through the center of the preserve (where we encounted A LOT of mosquitos) and then hooked up with an outer trail. This part of the trail was part of the Wabash-Erie canal. The hike was really beautiful and peaceful. There is a lot of history in this forest, and I am thankful that it has been preserved. (Thanks to Kirsten for taking pictures - I couldn't find our camera when we were trying to leave!)

Boys in front of giant tree root ball

hiking in the woods

a turtle we found along the path

Gavin getting a Bear smooch!

Trevor playing with wood pieces