Cave Falls

We had a Saturday open this weekend so I thought it would be fun to take the kids to Cave Falls. I had heard a lot about it but never been there; I thought it would be an adventure. That it was......that it was.

We started out just fine, driving along with our mp3 players and toys. I turned off the highway and onto a secondary road. Amelia asked how much longer (We had been driving for 25 minutes). I told her another half hour. The secondary road soon turned in a dirt road....except due to all the rain we'd been getting it was closer to a mud road. Just so you know, our little red car can do just fine in deep mud if you push the gas pedal to the floor and traverse the road in a serpentine pattern. A looooong 15 miles later we arrived at Cave Falls. We were the only ones there, which was nice with a bit of creepy thrown in.

We made our way to the rivers edge carefully. (I had to drag Amelia down and every few feet she'd let out short screams while I tried to hold onto Cooper's jacket because he was fearless and literally running down the steep bank).

At the viewing area.



Cave Falls

 

Down by the river. The cave part of Cave Falls had collapsed.

 After we explored around the rivers' edge we trekked back up to the parking area to have some lunch.


A lovely picnic with the roar of the falls nearby.

When lunch was finished we decided to go hiking. We packed up a backpack, locked our car and headed out on a lovely trail along the river. I made the mistake of walking past the bulletin board and Amelia saw the warnings for bears. We made it 100 yards into our hike before Amelia became too scared to go any further. With her pulling on my arm to stop and Cooper pulling on my arm to go, I opted to head back down to the riverbank.

Playing on the rocks further down the river at much-smaller, bear-less Benchley Falls.



Cooper "superhero" pose. As you might have noticed, he was wearing a Superman t-shirt. He tried out different poses throughout the day.

 

One of my favorite pictures.

After we'd played at the river a bit we decided to head out. We'd still only seen one other car in the few hours we'd been there. We loaded in the car and started the drive. As we passed the "woods" Amelia mentioned the trees looked cool.  



I agreed with her, and she asked me to stop the car so she could get a picture of her standing in front of the woods. I was a bit confused on why she would want a picture in front of the woods but wouldn't go hiking. She raised her eyebrows, stuck her thumb toward the trees and said, "Do you see any bears in there? If one shows up I can run to the car." Good point. And what Amelia does, Cooper must as well:

After a brief discussion we decided we didn't want to go home yet, so when we hit the highway we turned north toward Island Park. I was surprised the kids were so willing to go....until ten miles out I realized they thought Island Park was a huge playground with toys. I corrected them and assured them there was still fun things to see.  They begrudgingly decided to give Island no-playground-Park a try.



Amelia at Big Springs. It was much colder than Cave Falls.

 

The fish at Big Springs. They were hiding under the bridge from the kids (not mine) throwing the food hard in the water trying to hit them, and the drunk lady who was leaning so far over the rail she was almost IN the river.

The viewing platform for Johnny Sack cabin. 

We decided to cross the river and walk to the cabin.  Amelia nervously looked for bears until I told her they didn't come around here.  Cooper noticed some frequent animal droppings on the path, and I told him they were deer or moose. After that Amelia looked nervously for deer and moose while Cooper skipped along the path singing, "I'm following the trail of poop! Following the trail of poop! Poopy, poopy, everywhere!"

 



Did we have an adventure? I'd have to say "mission accomplished".