One of the Hayes family’s favorite ways to usher in the Fall is to pack a picnic basket and head to Fort Wilderness at the first sign of sub 100 degree weather. This year was no different. We got our drinks and snacks packed and ready to go, stopped at the brand new Jersey Mike’s Subs on Narcoossee (they were still working out the kinks on day 3) and headed to Fort Wilderness. Suburban Florida does not have a ton of accessible wilderness that meets Emily’s criteria of being clean and having working restrooms within a five minute walk, so we have decided that Fort Wilderness is as “wildernessy” as Ms. Emily wants to get. We arrived at the Fort, found a parking spot in the main lot, and enjoyed a nice 15 minute walk to the middle section of the resort where there is a nice table on the river that we like enjoy eating at. Before eating we snapped a few photos as inevitably the clothing doesn’t stay clean much through bite two or three of lunch. Below are our handsome boys.
Since we were all pretty hungry we got the table set up with all the fixin’s and dug in. The boys lunch consisted pretty much of Cheetos and a drink but the setting was beautiful so we didn’t mind much. Below is our lunch setup.
With all there was to explore, it was a race for the boys to finish so they could go explore the surrounding area. We spent a while just taking photos and watching the boys catch lizards and do what boys do. After we exhausted all there was to explore we decided to continue our trek to the back of the resort where they keep the ponies and horses.
It wouldn’t be a trip to Fort Wilderness without a pony ride for one of the boys. It turns out that Hunter is now too tall for the ponies so only Sawyer could “enjoy” a ride today. Not sure he was quite as excited as Hunter used to be but we thought we would see if he liked it. I think his face in the photo below says it all.
After the pony ride we decided to enjoy the fresh air and take a boat ride over to the Wilderness Lodge Resort. We strolled around a bit, grabbed a few Mickey Ice cream bars and devoured our mid afternoon treats. We explored the resort (and of course the store) and grabbed another boat ride back to Fort Wilderness.
After we disembarked the boat and located our stroller we navigated the resort golf cart parking lot and saw quite possibly the best golf cart in existence captured below.
I have to give it to Emily, she is super thoughtful, resourceful, and creative when it comes to fun activities for the boys on the weekend. Through her unparalleled Pinterest organization she was able to locate a party printable that had a list of items to find while exploring the wilderness. She printed a couple of these and taped them to a couple bags and the boys spent their travel time collecting “treasures” throughout their day. They had a lot of fun as you can see in their photo below.
After the boys filled their bags and our legs were tired, we decided to call it a day, and a great one at that, at Fort Wilderness.
LOVE that first picture of the boys together. Wow.