Reunion Time! - Part 4 Crater Lake

We spent Day 2 of our reunion at Crater Lake National Park.  We picked the best day to go, too.  The following days were really overcast and smoggy due to the fires, but for some reason, it was clear and beautiful for us.  The whole family met at the lodge for lunch and the movie explaining the creation of Crater Lake.  Then we decided which hikes to go on.  Thanks to the children's stunning performance hiking in the redwood, we decided to take the whole family on a difficult hike down to the actual lake.  I've been to Crater Lake many times, but never down into the actual basin, so I was pretty excited.  They said it was equivalent to 67 flights of stairs, so I was impressed that my parents decided to go.  

Here's the group before we started.  Note that Joy is upset, not at the idea of hiking or seeing the lake, but that she lost her water bottle at the main cabin and had to borrow her cousins and she did not want it.

We made it down no problem, though of course, it rarely is.  Here's The Captain and my niece enjoying some very cold, very blue water.

And here's my niece after she fell in.

And after all that, Joy wanted to get her feet wet, too.

And what was Miss Lee doing?  Sleeping on Daddy, of course, she fell asleep quite soon after we started hiking.

Johnny was busy uploading pictures like this one on his phone. My children almost loved me right into the lake, too.

Here's the offending water bottle.  She fell in love with it as soon as she was distracted by hiking and chipmunks and water.

And here's the group post hike up.  I had some help by my brother with pokey Joy, who was giving me a good excuse to slowly crawl up the mountain.  But keeping pace was good for me, and as you can see, we all survived and we felt pretty darn good.

Reunion Time! - Part 3 The Redwoods

On Joy's birthday, we spent the day in the Redwoods.  We started out driving a 5 mile loop to introduce the kids to what "big" trees actually were.  It was so fun to hear them oo and ah when we saw the first real sequoias.  We weren't planning on stopping to hike, but we saw a small trail to the river and decided, what the heck, it was only .7 miles.  We ended up taking a much longer path, but I don't think anyone minded.  In fact, it was the kids' favorite hike.

nature's playground

natural log bench = picture time

I wanted a picture that captured my love of this place.  This wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but pretty awesome considering I was unprepared.  Also, I love that I can get golden light at 1pm in the forest. 

We tuckered this little girl out.  We climbed giant trees, played by the river, crossed a crooked bridge, and did it all again in reverse.  The kids would have stayed at the river all day, there were tadpoles and new frogs.

If this picture doesn't portray sadness, I don't know what does.  Poor Joy was cold so I gave her my sweater, but it wasn't her jacket, cause her jacket was in the car, and we were walking back to the car.  #preschoolproblems

We stopped for a picnic and went for one more hike after lunch.  I was looking for my family's favorite trail, but couldn't find it.  The one we went on was very flat and easy and informative.  We learned to identify two different families of ferns.  We accidentally went on the loop twice, which normally wouldn't have been a problem except that I was giving Joy a piggy back ride and she fell asleep on the first loop, so I was carrying an extra 40 pounds of dead weight for the whole second trip.  We obviously don't hike enough if 1 1/2 trails can wipe Joy out.  Or maybe it was the sweater sadness . . .

The next day we had to head to Crater Lake for the reunion, but we decided to do one more hike before we left, since it was on the way out.  We picked a hard one, with a difficult mountainous loop attached, which we went up on the return trip.  Despite having already hiked almost 2 miles, no one complained about the steepness or the difficulty.  We've got some troopers.  Pretty sure they could handle Mt. Timp.  

Not sure if anyone's ever mentioned that it's difficult to get all the children to cooperate . . .

The Captain, "another picture, Mom?"

Headed into a hollow tree.  We found out that the bark of Redwoods is pretty much fireproof, which is why there are so many hollow trees.  Eventually there is a big enough crack in one for the fire to get in and burn the wood on the inside, leaving the mostly indestructible bark shells.

Loved the patterns on this tree.

One of five slugs spotted on our hike.  Since this one had spots,
it was clearly the favorite.

Pretty sure Johnny asked me not to post this picture.

The many faces of Lee

She did this one for the first time that day.

Stank face, which she will do on command.

And of course, Joy will join in any silliness.  Hard to believe this miracle baby is 4 already.

So I think I converted some of the family to the Redwoods.  And if there is ever a zombie apocalypse, we will move our food storage to the Redwoods and hunker down there.  Because not only will I get to be in my favorite place in the world, but ain't no zombies gonna find us in there, fool!

Reunion Time! - Part 2 Prehistoric Gardens

So we made an unscheduled stop on our way down the Oregon coast to this tucked-away tourist attraction called Prehistoric Gardens.  As is usually the case, it was a really good idea.  What makes more since than life-size dinosaur replicas in a forest that was probably around when they were? 

The Captain did not want to pose with T-Rex in the parking lot.

In the washed out background is a brontosaurus.

This blurry picture is the only one of the
 triceratops, which is one of my favorites.

 We just wandered around the trails, following the map, spotting cool ancient beasts. 

 The kids were in heaven.

This one looks like the dinosaur was somehow
following us.  I assure you, it was not.
Still not sure how I took that one . . .

Ichthyosaurus, a personal The Captain favorite

"get the baby dinosaurs, Mom"

 Johnny was explaining how big the stegosaurus's brain is.

Even Lee enjoyed herself.

As you can see, it was pretty great.  It was an awesome introduction to the Redwoods.  More of those to come . . .