Three Creeks, South Side, Summer

It has been a whirlwind of activities this weekend.  We hiked at Rock Bridge State Park, made a huge batch of pesto, and attempted canning pickles. We were still feeling like we needed to take advantage of the great weekend weather outdoors, so after the kids' nap on Sunday, we packed up to go on our second weekend hike to Three Creeks Trails, one of our favorite trails in the area. It's only about 10 minutes from our house, and not many people use this entrance so we rarely see other people there. I blogged about our hike there this past spring, but someone had told us that if we headed in the opposite direction that we normally do, we would find a good swimming hole for the kids. Since swimming in the creek is on our summer bucket list, we decided to go exploring. Wow, that's a lot of hyperlinks for one paragraph.



This creek usually isn't full of water so once we get down the trail to the creek, we just hike down the creek bed until we find a spot to set up camp for a little while. Normally, we head south from the trail, but this time we headed north. I was happy to see that there actually was quite a bit of water since we haven't had rainfall in a couple of weeks.



This is something we haven't seen before on this hike. Check out the cave! And this time we actually did bring a flashlight, but unfortunately, you aren't supposed to explore without written permission. We plan to look into how to do that so maybe we can go in next time.





 It was so dense and green in the woods and on the creek bed. Such a difference from when we were here in the spring. Here's a picture of our spring hike compared to the middle of summer.

Spring hike at Three Creeks

Summer hike at Three Creeks

Still, it was a beautiful day for a hike.

Some of the pools of water were stagnant and I wasn't really excited about letting the boys get in there, so we waited until we found some fresh water.

And then we did! Just the right depth for our little guys. Since there is a rock bottom, it can be pretty slick, so we brought extra shoes for the boys to wear in the water. Lex did not like the idea of wearing shoes in the water so he stayed barefoot.

Two peas in a pod.

Eli getting used to it.

Lex feeling it out.

So there's a back story that goes with this picture and the next couple. After we had splashed around for a bit, we decided to walk up a little further where it looked like the water was deeper. We had to walk through the water to get there because the shoreline was a bit treacherous. On the way, I asked Jeremy if he thought we would see in any crawdads. When I was younger, whenever people went to the creek, they seemed to find crawdads. I had seen people holding them, but had never found one in a creek myself. Jeremy thought that we could probably find some if we looked. Well, we hit the jackpot. Just up the creek from this picture, there were crawdads everywhere! I don't know what you call a group of crawdads - a school, a swarm, a gaggle? Whatever it is, we saw one. Lex wasn't too happy about the idea of crawdads and sat on the shore while we looked. I didn't take the camera with me which is why there are no pictures of the gaggle of crawdads. So anyway, on the way back, Lex was walking beside me very carefully and diligently looking for any signs of a crawdad so that he could avoid it. The whole time, I was explaining to him that they aren't scary, and are more scared of us they we are of them, blah, blah, blah. And in the middle of my rambling, he saw one. And then this picture happened. He immediately jumped onto my leg with a terrified death grip and a look of horror on his face. He was screaming and crying all at the same time. And for some reason, I could not stop laughing hysterically.

He eventually scaled up me, despite my  laughter, so that I could get a better grip.

I kept trying to assure him that we were past the crawdads and then tried to set him down, but he would just strengthen his grip on me. In hind site, I could have been much more comforting, but in my defense, Jeremy was on the shore, also laughing, and taking pictures of us. We will probably need to work through this traumatic moment with him in therapy someday.

Back on the shore, we all settled down and had some snacks while watching minnows and frogs.

Here's Jeremy totally in his element. So glad that we share this love for the outdoors!

So that hike wrapped up our weekend adventures. We were exhausted and yet felt as if we had definitely made the most of our weekend.