Lucia Falls

The weather was so beautiful yesterday and since I had nothing planned, I decided the boys and I should get outside for awhile. Danny and Isaac are suckers for picnics and waterfalls, so they were easily convinced.

I had actually initially planned on heading out for the Middle Lewis River Falls loop hike, but it turns out it was a bit more of a drive than I'd anticipated, out in the boonies, and I'll admit, being by myself, with a 2- and 4-year-old in the middle of the woods kinda freaks me out; I decided to save that little hike for a time when Chris is with us.

We settled for just Lucia Falls; we'd been there before, but not for a couple years. It's a nice easy walk, the waterfall is pretty, there's lots of picnicking areas AND it's only about ten minutes away. I think Danny will probably be making us go back.

Proof that they were excited:

Isaac kept clapping and yelling, "Yay, waterfall!" but I didn't manage to get it on camera. It was pretty cute though.

One of the cool things about Lucia Falls is that there are a ton of rocky areas to scrabble around on. We didn't do too much, since I was alone with two kids, plus we had Zeus and of course I had these terrifying images of one of my kids plunging into the river and I. cannot. hardly. swim. Being there with Chris will make the rocks a little more fun, or when the kids get older. Danny did really well climbing around, Isaac of course needed a bit of help. Zeus was a pain in the ass. :)

Danny tried really hard to get Zeus to pose for a picture...this is the best I got. See? Pain. Isaac's butt is all wet b/c he promptly fell down in some mud first thing when we got there.

 

We finally managed to get our "hike" started; the falls is less than a quarter mile from the parking lot, so you see it immediately and the kids were very hard to pull away from it. The trail forks from the falls/picnic area; we walked the portion along the river first (the southern part), then the trail went uphill (north) slightly and looped back to rejoin at the falls again.

 

Issac didn't make it much past this point--maybe 1/3 of a mile?! I always bring the Ergo along on these outings, so he got plopped in there, and was perfectly content to be carried the rest of the hike. 

Poor Danny--probably 3/4 through the hike (it's only a mile), he got very tired and would have probably liked his own Ergo.

He was a trooper though, and finished up for me. We had to walk to the car and get our lunch; Danny was happy to wait back where I could see him, on a tree stump.

We ate lunch and then I let Danny have the camera the rest of the trip:

Danny said about the above picture: "The forest floor is really dirty, Mama."

This is "some very soft moss."

I love the two tree pictures. Gives you an idea of the sense of awe a little kid must feel, being so tiny is such a big place. Danny told me about these pictures: "The trees were so pretty." Awww....

And then Danny tried to take a picture of me and Zeus; Zeus was still uncooperative. But this kind of gives you an idea of the belly starting to emerge :) 

We had a fun trip though, I'd recommend this as a good little picnic and hike site for kids. I'm even planning on taking my grandparents next time they're here!