Mima Falls

Lesson learned on this hike: trust the description of hike distances over eyeballing it on a DNR map.  Otherwise a 3-mile hike turns into a 5.5+ mile hike.  

Haha!

So, truly, this is not a big problem for me.  I love to hike.  And, based on some of the reviews I had read, I had an inkling that this might happen, so I had the boys bring an extra snack.  This time we told the boys it was going to be a 3-mile walk, and some of them actually still thought that was the case at the end of it.  

Haha!

However, it was long for Ben's short legs and at one point he told me that the only reason he was on the hike was for the blackberries.  It was also long for Isaac's legs, but he took the easy way out and rode the entire way on the back of his parents.  Isaac was also along for the blackberries.  Luckily for both of them, there were several bushes along the way that accommodated their blackberry habit.

The first part of the hike was littered with several chopped trees.  Some of which had letters (initials?) carved into them.  While it didn't seem to matter all that much on the way out, the boys took note and it proved helpful on the way back to figure out roughly how much farther we had to go.  When you're tired and sore, you need every bit of encouragement you can get.

As per usual, things started to get a little silly when I started taking pictures.  Michael so badly wanted to photobomb that I just took a straight on shot of his silly face.

At which point I had to take a picture of Josh's silly face.

And Ben, whose face was not silly, but his bright green soccer socks that he wears everywhere kind of are.

Michael wasn't particularly successful at photobombing, but Ben was. Hi, Ben!

Just when I thought all was lost, I managed to get a picture of Jason and the older boys when no one was paying attention to what I was doing.

Finally at the falls!  I don't know that I would have described this as a "falls" so much as a semi-horizontal meandering creek, but it had a nice picnic area and you could climb down next to the water.

A quick break to eat snacks and let Isaac stretch his legs afforded the boys another opportunity to pose for some more pictures.

Another great hike and I was glad that we got some more miles in than we've done recently.  Three miles is about what I like to do if I don't have Jason along to help, so it was a nice treat to have him with us for the day.  Now all we have to do is work on Isaac's stamina....