Our first day was a bit of a soft start, but day two was a real hike. We had never taken the kids on any sort of long-ish hike, so we weren't sure how they would do. Malcolm
loved it. Dorothy liked some small parts, but was overall unimpressed.
This was taken after our hike, but we did the Trillium Gap Trail to Grotto Falls. It was rated as a moderate hike and was just fine for us. It went up a bit and that made it a little difficult, but not too bad.
It was so pretty, and the kids like climbing the rocks and tree roots that were everywhere at the start of the trail. It became more smooth as we got closer to the falls.
Dorothy insisted on climbing over every rock she encountered at first, even if there was a very easy way to get around it.
After a while, the novelty wore off and Kevin ended up carrying her a fair amount.
There were three or four places where we had to cross some water on the trail and she always wanted to be put down to walk across, then be picked up again once her feet were nice and wet and muddy.
Grotto Falls is the only waterfall where you can walk behind it. We aren't all the way behind in the picture, but the path goes all of the way across. It is a cool novelty, but the kids weren't overly impressed and preferred when we let them splash a bit in the shallow water a tiny ways down the trail.
We had packed a picnic and planned to find a place to pull over for lunch, but the road we were on didn't have much in the way of flat, grassy areas to spread out a blanket. We ended up on the lawn of the visitor's center because they had shade, grass, and real bathrooms.
After a nap, we headed to the pool that is owned by the company we rented the cabin from. It didn't look far from our cabin on the map, but it took longer to get there than we anticipated because of all the winding around we had to do.
The pool was beautiful, but so very, very cold. I didn't make it past my ankles. It felt about the same, or colder, than the mountain water we had our feet in earlier. Kevin got in and braved it for a little bit, but got out pretty quickly.
It was a great set up and I wish we could have used it more. The pool they are in was only four feet deep everywhere, so Malcolm could stand and safely swim to his heart's content. Behind the rocks is another pool that was 4, 6, then 8 feet deep. The deeper pool then had a waterfall that went into the shallow pool.
Another look at the waterfall from the deep pool into the shallow one. This is as far as Dorothy got in and I don't blame her.
Malcolm jumped in over and over again and the frigid water didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. There were two older kids (maybe 11?) and the girl jumped in and exclaimed, "It's penguin water!"
We called it quits fairly soon, and went back to cook out for dinner. That went much better. Dinner was good, but making s'mores was much more exciting.
Malcolm has two marshmallows on his stick because he likes his s'mores extra gooey.
I don't know how it didn't all end up in his lap.
For his second one, he went with a more reasonable, single marshmallow.
After watching her brother, Dorothy decided that she needed a double marshmallow on her second s'more.
Trying to get the last little bit.
Her double marshmallow was so messy, she needed to come in and eat it at the table.
S'mores face!
Stickier s'mores face.
We had great weather while we were there and we all loved getting to spend so much time outside, just hanging out.
No comments:
Post a Comment