04<-08:00>05/14
Out and About
Spring is such a short season here, but it is SO pretty! I’ve been trying to soak in all the green-ness and flowers while they are still around…this will all be brown and dusty soon!
On Facebook I saw a photographer in the area had gone to a place called Beaks Bight and it was FULL of wild flowers! Then I saw that it was at Folsom Lake, which is just a few minutes away from our house…so I was dying to go! I’ve lived here my whole life and gone to that entrance to the lake, but never to the end of the road. It was gorgeous!!! I want to go back (mostly because we didn’t go to the most flowery side of the lake…we took a different trail and I just want to sit and enjoy the flowers…I’m kind of weird maybe?) No one wanted to stop and take pictures, they wanted to get to the water (of course) but I forced them :) It was just too pretty, I couldn’t NOT take pictures!
Then, this weekend my mom and I decided to try another trail that is fairly close by. We went to Hidden Falls Regional Park in Auburn. Someone recommended the Poppy Trail, which leads down to a creek and a waterfall, so we took a map and followed the trail. This place was gorgeous too! After going about 100 yards Dallin wanted to be carried. Oh dear. I didn’t bring the backpack for him and I tried making him be tough for awhile…but finally gave in and picked him up. Then I noticed we were on switchbacks going down…which meant the way back would all be up. I kept wondering how Ada would do…and then wondering how it was going to be carrying Dallin all the way down…then all the way up. Every time Ada would complain we’d look around for something to tell her to get to…most of the time it was horse poop, “Let’s race to the poop!” Finally we reached the creek and noticed there was a photography class going on and the whole creek area was filled with tripods and photo students! Bummer. We squeezed around them and sat down in a poison oak infested area, trying to dodge and discern between berry bushes and poison Oak. Somehow (and I don’t know how) no one got any rashes! I know for a fact that Dallin threw a fit and rolled onto a couple poison oak bushes..so I feel blessed that we are all rash free!
After the kids got bored we headed back up the trail. Luckily we saw lots of dogs and horses so that kept the kids excited. My mom and I were trying to find the shortest way possible back to the car and at one point we saw a little trail that went straight up the mountain…so when no one was looking (since there were signs that said keep on the trail…oops!) we huffed it, with kids in tow, straight up the hill! Needless to say, we got a good cardio work out that day :) Even with kids who didn’t cooperate the whole time, we had fun and it was so beautiful! I love being in beautiful places with people I love.
When we got back to the trail map we looked at our trail again and it was labeled as “difficult.” Well, next time maybe we will look at the level of difficulty before we head into a hike with little kiddos! :)
Summer
May 5, 2014
1:59 pm
We did the EXACT same thing last year at Hidden Falls. The hike started getting longer and longer and we never did make it to the big waterfall that everyone was bragging about. We actually found a really fun (small) waterfall on a different trail that the kids played in. On our way back we went up that steep “off trail” path, mainly because there was someone on the trail up ahead that had a heart attack or something and life flight was on their way. It was much more intense than we had planned. We MIGHT try it again this year, now that the babies are bigger. We’ll have to go to that side of the lake. I’ve never seen that before either.