On Saturday, we took a day trip to Clifty Falls State Park in Madison, Indiana. It's just across the Ohio River from Kentucky, down south toward Louisville. We heard about this place from some friends of ours that went camping there and said it was a fun place with some good hiking. We've been really wanting to go camping since we moved here, but I'm finding that to be really difficult in the midwest! It's so hot and humid in the summer that camping would be absolutely miserable, and the weather is so unpredictable in the spring, it's hard to plan a rain-free trip. We're thinking maybe Fall will be best, but we'll see.
Anyway, so we decided since this place was only an hour and a half away, we would just go for the day! It worked out great. We left around 8:30 am on Saturday and got home about 4pm. We started off with a 1.25 mile moderate hike where we saw two waterfalls along with a creek and some really beautiful scenery. We wished we had done the hike the other direction though because right away we saw both waterfalls and then just hiked the rest of the way back around. It would have been a little more fun to hike first, but oh well.
Above - "Big Clifty Falls"
"Little Clifty Falls"
The kids were cute when they got dressed that morning - they all wanted to wear their matching family reunion shirts. There were lots of stairs on that first hike!
Probably the best part was when we took a little detour down to this creek and played around down there for a bit...
We named this one "Miniature Clifty Falls", following the theme of the others. :) We also named a "Micro Clifty Falls" and a "Dwarf Clifty Falls" along the way.
After that hike we drove south in the state park down to another trail. We stopped and had a picnic lunch and let the kids play on the play structure for awhile and then did another hike.
What a good brother.
Little Miss Grace enjoyed a little time out of the carrier. Yummy fingers! You can see the sweat beaded up on her nose too. It was definitely feeling wet outside by this point.
I love that little face!
Eli loves his baby sister!
A very non-traditional play structure, but very fun! They enjoyed climbing all over it and calling it their castle.
This next hike was only .75 miles and we thought it would be so easy since the other one was really mild. Well, I forgot it was marked as "very rugged" as opposed to "moderately rugged" like the other one, so it was a lot harder than we were expecting! It was great though, and the kids did awesome. It was very steep and uneven down to a creek where we had to cross and then come back up. And then the waterfall we were supposed to see was hardly visible! So that was a bit of a disappointment, but it was still a great hike. I really love hiking (more so in less humidity, but I still loved it), and I was proud of our kids. Luckily, Anna is a little mountain goat and is just as strong and capable as her brothers!
We were happy to cool off by the creek before hiking back up. That water felt so good splashed on our faces!
Above - Connor's feelings at that moment during the hike are clearly evident on his face. Hehe. And below - some of the uneven terrain. It was steeper than it looks.
We crossed this creek right at the end also because the bridge was under repair! This is what goes down and becomes "Hoffman Falls", which we couldn't really see. And yes, everything is green, green, green!
In typical midwest summer fashion, we were all COMPLETELY dripping and soaked from sweat, so after we finished we went and grabbed some ice cream in "downtown" Madison (tiny little town) at this ice cream shop we will never go to again. We felt like we were in the twilight zone or something, it was so weird, or that we'd stepped way back in time or something. Everyone working there had a few too many screws loose. And my "fresh peach ice cream" tasted really gross. How do you mess up ice cream? Luckily the kids didn't notice a thing and loved their ice cream, so that's all that really matters!
We had a fun drive home rocking out to Insideout Acapella primary tunes and then had a great evening at the pool cooling off after dinner. (When Anna decided she could swim! That girl is determined to grow up too fast).
(Did I mention we had the pool to ourselves on a Saturday night?!? It was awesome.)
It was another great day of our "Staycation"!!
Right - "Cake Rock"
2 comments:
Woohoo! That hike looks beautiful! I love the midwest green. :) Your kids are so cute, and Anna is hilarious. I loved the pictures of her climbing all over that play structure. She knows no fear! :)
The hike looked so beautiful! Your children are so adorable and I loved the pictures in their matching reunion shirts:)! Grace is so cute in all the pictures too! What a beautiful family and fun to see you making memories as a family!
Post a Comment