When Crystal was in the US for a wedding recently the kids and I packed up some water and headed out to the desert perimeter. We parked at the end of the soccer field across from the Hills fire station ((though it was cricket, not soccer that was being played that day)) and hiked a ways down a wadi. Small hills became mountains and Kai slipped into mountain climbing mode. Nora did her best to keep up.
About half way through the hike I realized I forgot to bring wipes but figured that we would be OK. However, during a rest under the palm tree I was trying to explain cricket to Kai (we had a view of the game about 500 meters away) and Nora came up with a double scooped handful of horse manure ((the hobby farm is not too far away and I think people sometimes ride horses in the area)). “Dad, what is this stuff?” Sure did miss those wipes. Once Nora realized it was “icky” she was eager to clean them off. We used grape halves and old receipts from Dad’s wallet to get the bigger pieces off and Nora walked back to the car with her hands stuck out straight from her sides so she wouldn’t touch anything.
