One of the long-standing Wrightwood traditions is having garage sales on Memorial Day weekend, such that people come from all over to shop for treasures at several hundred simultaneous yard sales. While Jane and Chelsea ventured out with the crowds, Chris took all three boys on a hike. The plan was to start at Grassy Hollow and head east up the PCT – unsure of how far we’d get, we packed the boys’ new hydration backpacks with a liter of water each and some lunch and headed out, arriving at Grassy Hollow by about 10:30am. After a pass through the visitor center that is always a treat, the guys were ready to hit the trail, so Chris herded the cats and led them military-patrol style through the day use area and onto the PCT. The trail leads eastward up a short, moderate hill for about 200 yards, then levels out for the next quarter mile – right away, the boys were interested in little else than eating lunch, so we started looking for a break spot, eventually choosing to just plop down next to the trail under the shade of some trees. Jude asked how many miles we had walked to that point, and Chris noted we had covered about 1,900 feet, per the GPS – funny how that seems so far to these little men. Freshly fueled, we set out again, soon reaching the vale below the west side of Lightning Ridge – after another rest break, we started climbing through the pair of switchbacks up to another level traverse across the south face of the ridge, Ollie quietly protesting that this hike was taking forever, his observation affirming our predictably slow pace so far. We soon we passed the high point of this trail section and arrived at the bench above Inspiration Point, finding another couple there ahead of us – the boys enjoyed an extended break here, eating fruit snacks and wondering how long it would take us to get back to the car (Chris wondered that too). After placing rocks atop the PCT milepost near the bench, we headed back west, retracing our steps and arriving back at Grassy Hollow about 2:15pm, 2-year-old Beckett walking the whole way on his own (with some hand-held encouragement from Chris to keep moving at times). A good time was had by all, even Ollie admitting “it was a little fun” to be out on a hike with Pop – the first of many such adventures to come.