Welti Return

I love that we have found somewhere to go that's so close to home!  I am already feeling morose about this summer when it will be too dry to swim, but hopefully we can take advantage of it a few more times before the weather gets hot.

Today was a perfect day to be outside in the water.  We met up with Cathy and Lakota at Berlin and headed to the falls for the afternoon.  The kids were in the water right away, I took a while...

They floated down the creek in tubes after swimming and climbing the falls and then we all had lunch, out pickle chips were so salty, I thought we would all have fits.  It was like licking a battery, it nearly knocked your head off.

The kids went under the falls at one point to sit behind the water.  I thought how lovely, a true example of sucking the marrow out of the day.  Jake came to ask if I wanted to go back with them, that it was 'an awesome experience'.  I declined and he went back across the water.  Then I decided I am far too young to miss out on something like that.  I handed the camera and my sunglasses to Cathy and proceeded to scream my way across the water and climb the falls.  I went through the beating water of the falls on my hands and knees.  It WAS an awesome experience.  I'd put it in a top 10 list of things I have done that I have enjoyed immensely.  It was SO cool, the water made a sheet in front of us, it was so loud and the air was saturated, it was chilly and easy to breathe-no pollen!  I hated to leave, but all the stray water flying around was creating hazards for my contacts!

We swam around and floated another hour or so, spending a total of about 4.5 hours at the falls, it hardly seemed like it!

Blogger has AGAIN randomly arranged my photos, so I will just label them as they appear:

It's us behind the falls!  See the green arrow?  Cathy took this one with my camera.

The kids floating down the creek!

Baby water snake.  The kids saw a big one at the top of the falls and we kept trying to come up with scenarios in which it came flying OVER the falls, in particular while we were under the falls.

As soon as we got there, the kids went running off to climb around.  The water was lower today than the last 2 times.

It's me!  Cathy took this one, too.

 

This is a pic of Ben at the top of the falls, I put a B over his head in the pic below so you can see him more easily.

Wild Spring

Random wildflower photos and...some trees.

Azalea

Yellow Bellwort

Buckeye

Common Yellow Wood Violet

Oxeye Daisy

Dogwood

Wild Geranium

Eastern Shooting Star

Larkspur

Mix of columbine and phlox

Red star anise

Trailing Trillium

Trillium Sessile

white trillium

white wood sorrel

wild hyacinth

Poppy and I think a wood anemone in the background

Wild lettuce

Yellow Trillium

Below, I was waiting for Matt to place a geocache and just liked the way the sunset was filtering through the trees:

14.45!

Our longest walk to date and there were 2 pop-up thundershowers while we were out!


This time, we parked just off 31 on the other side of the river bridge from Decatur and walked down White Springs Dike, taking a 2-mile side track that lead nowhere.  Back on the main road, we walked to the Interstate bridges and then kept going, intending to loop around by Arrowhead Landing and come back along the river,  but the bottom fell out.  We cut back across a field road to the bridges again and just as we reached them, the rain stopped.  We spread out our soaked stuff and had some tuna and crackers and sat a while, resting up and drinking some water.

It was about 5 miles back to the van from there, so we started out, taking the shortest route we could.  The rain kicked in again after the first mile and it poured.  I did not want to leave the trees for the next long stretch of open fields, so we hunkered down about 20 minutes in a small grove with some good cover.  Matt called Gina, who looked up the weather for us.  They decided we needed to get moving before an even bigger cell with worse weather hit, so we loaded up and started walking again.  About a mile from the van, it stopped raining again and the sun came back out.

We were soaked through, except Matt, who had a waterproof jacket.  My feet were dry thanks to my leather hiking boots, but the kids were in trail shoes with canvas tops and their feet were wet.

Once we got home-with a stop at Aldi for food and Taco Bell for more food, I kind of remember putting away the cold foods and getting out of my wet stuff.  I checked feet and discovered a blister on my foot, but the kids were fine.  I put on my footie pajamas and laid down on my heating pad and that was it for me until around midnight.  I woke up a couple of times, scared Matt with a near-fainting spell.  I have no idea where that came from, maybe from being so soundly asleep and then getting up so fast?  I fell asleep with my contacts in.  Ugh.  Those had to go! 

This morning, I feel fine, my foot hurts, but I am not sore.  I slept 7 hours straight after I took out my contacts, that's a new record in itself!!

Ah, how deceptive the sky is!

Jake had an awful Charley horse and allergy attack.  He was pretty miserable, but a good rub-down from Dad helped.

mayapple

crossvine

tree frog

in the awesome news category, my blue scarf has returned home
And, it helped as Chan had no hat!

Jake wanted to hotwire this guy and drive back to the van

more clouds are brewing...

And, just after the last round of rains.  It was really pretty!

on the way home, we got to see some of the sunset colors

And, a double rainbow!  The second rainbow is very faint.