Today, we took a little bit of a jaunt around the corner and down the road from where we live. I love living here. Around every corner is nature's playground.
Not far from where we live is a great train trestle....it's still in use and below it is a fantastic cascading waterfall. It's not too fast, not too cold and not too deep. It's a perfect spot to take the kids on a hot summer day.
I've actually been over the road bridge (which you can't see in this picture, but it's behind the trees behind the trestle) many times for walks and driving to the lake, but I've never been down to the creek. David likes to take the kids down here on a regular basis since it's close by and easy to get to. He had promised the kids that he would take them down there today. I hadn't planned on going down, but my daughter was quite insistent. I couldn't say no, so I gave myself a little bit of a mental boost and packed my water shoes, camera and sketch book and headed out with the family.
I never took the sketchbook out because I had such a great time traipsing through the water to get to the falls (we had to take a path down the hill and through the woods to be able to get to the creek, then head up the creek to the falls) and sitting down and watching my husband and kids play in the water.
Usually, Zach is all about the bugs. Lately, when he's at the water, it's all about the fish. His bug nets double as fish nets now. It's amazing how skilled he is at not only catching bugs with one fell swoop of his net, but also fish! He's amazing!
I love this picture of him in his mud boots. He usually wears sandals when he's outside, but his sandals finally gave up the ghost and took their resting place in the dumpster. They lasted him through last year and this year and, after being held together by strong medical tape to get even more life out of them, they finally bit the dust. I had held off buying him a new pair this year because they seemed to be doing alright. I underestimated this little guy. He wore them hard and by the time they fell apart for good, the stores around here were getting rid of their sandals on clearance to make room for fall and winter footwear. And doesn't it just figure? The only sandals that were left were too small for him. Girly ended up with a pair instead, but I don't think those will make it to next year for her. Good thing they were only $4 for the pair!
Anyway.........the funniest thing about these mud boots is that Zach will go in the water WAY past the top of the boots. One of the reasons he wore the boots was because they have good traction on the bottom and the creek can be a little slippery in places, especially on submerged rocks. Whenever Zach got out of the water, you could hear the water sloshing around in his boots. He walked back up the trail and down the road, all the way back to our house with his boots full of water and didn't think anything of it. I had thought about suggesting to him to empty them out, but it was too cute, so I didn't say a thing.
The first picture in this post is looking up at the trestle from the bottom of the waterfall.
This picture to the left here is looking down the creek from the bottom of the waterfall. It was such a beautiful day today......and the way the light fell on the trees and the creek was a bit magical. I kept expecting to see fairies flitting about in the woods and above the creek.
We DID see a muskrat hop out of the creek and run up the falls, though. Not quite the same as seeing a fairy, but the kids had never seen one outside of a page in a book, so that was pretty cool for them.
This creek is actually submerged in the spring time by the melting snows. Its also grows twice the size in width and goes far beyond, to the right, from what yo u see in the picture. We haven't had a lot of rain lately, so the water level is really low right now. There's still a bit of a pool at the bottom of the falls, though, which is perfect for netting fish (Davy and Zach caught quite a few and they were actually pretty big....I was thinking they'd be minnow size, but they were about 3 or 4 inches long each!). Davy even stood in the pool really still for a while and the fish were nibbling on his toes. They didn't seem to be afraid of anyone. Except after they were caught, examined and then put back in the water.....they wanted to get away pretty quick.
The falls are a great place to sit and cool off. They're also a great place for a little Girly to splash her Dad. God forbid if you splash her back....but Davy is really great about it and humors her. I love to sit off to the side and hear her giggle as she gets him all wet. And I love to listen to him humor her and put up a silly, fake fuss when she splashes him. It's definitely some of the best theatrics ever!
I didn't realize what I was missing out on when they went on these little jaunts. I'll definitely have to go again sometime soon. Maybe I'll even take the kids myself this week during the day. Zach is done with his 6 weeks of summer school as of this past Friday. They'll be wanting something to do and this week is supposed to be a warm one. It'll be a good place to take a picnic lunch and cool off.
And now it's outside for me......I'm going out in the backyard to see if I can see any of the Perseid meteors. This is supposed to be the best night for them, but I fear the sky is starting to cloud up a bit. I saw some heat lightning earlier and the weather channel is calling for isolated thunder storms here tonight, so there might not be much to see. Here's to hoping.
Oh, I've recently updated Zach's list of "places he's traveled" through the Postcard project that's been going on since the end of November. (Look at the sidebar, to the right of this post) Click here to see that original post ----> Help Zach see the world!
Thank you to everyone that have sent postcards, little gifts (those were totally unexpected by so appreciated!) and well wishes to him! It's been a great project and he has 7 photo albums full of postcards from all over the US and the world! We enjoy every one of them that comes in!
Have a wonderful week everyone!
-Erika
Beautiful photos! Good luck with your goal...that is a great goal!
But...what happened to your dreads? Are they gone? Did I miss something?
Sue in vancouver
Posted by: sue | September 19, 2007 at 12:59 AM