Mt. Ogusu Revisited

Today we decided to do the Mt. Ogusu hike again, but this time we started from another trailhead. It was so much prettier but also twice as long. On the way to the trailhead we saw a shrine with a beautiful wooden door. We didn't follow the stairs up because sometimes they don't want people just sightseeing around their shrines. It took us about 2 hours to go up to the summit this time and an hour down. Our kids are rockstars. The 4 days of Cross Country practice that Cady attended this week have made all of the difference in her hiking abilities. She didn't complain a single time and she even ran up the stairs with me the last 150 meters. The kids had their first Cup of Noodles at the top of the mountain and swore that they were the best noodles they have had ever:). We stopped at a place called Happy as we walked back to the car from the trail. We each got some ice cream and one of the ladies inside brought us out a sweet potato to share with the kids later! I guess when the Barkers go out we look like we need free veggies. They kept saying the kids were cute and that's why they wanted to give us the sweet potato. They had a little aquarium outside that we were admiring while we ate our ice cream.