Last year, I read an article in The New York Times about NatGeo’s 2012 adventurer of the year, Alastair Humphreys and The Virtue of Microadventures. At the time, it struck me. It’s a lesson that took me too long to grasp: in pursuit of living a big, adventurous life, you don’t always have to go far from home.

Connecticut is perfect for microadventures. As I mentioned in my post about how settling in to CT, there is an abundance of open space areas to wander through & break away. On a run one day, I stumbled upon Mill Hill Open Space.

It’s 37.7 acres of hiking trails, water features, bridges, wildlife (though my dog and boy scared any signs of it away), and when you first walk down, there’s a huge area that is flat with only one tree in the center (not pictured). When I first found the space, I thought it was only the flat, open area. But I kept going to the right of where I entered and was very pleased with what I found.

I’ve made a habit of breaking away from my run to hike through it as it transforms during the spring, and I decided to bring my seven year old and my DSLR along this weekend, so I could share it.

Tobias took it upon himself to pee on a tree while I was messing with my camera settings.

His victim (urine not pictured, hah!:

That’t when I had to teach him distance-from-the-trail peeing etiquette. Oh, boys.

As you can see, the trails are clearly marked. In some places, there are orange spray can dots, and in others, there are these nice little signs.

The arrow signs lead you to and away from this body of water:

Tobias found a soccer ball. Here he is, explaining to me that it is, in fact, a dragon egg.As the weather gets warmer and things are a-bloomin’, we’re loving CT more and more.