Escaping the Heat

On Monday, Dan had the day off and we traveled to Dupont State Forest (about an hour south of Asheville, our fav. city). We didn't know much about where we were except for a few pics online but we were pleasantly surprised. They have several waterfalls and they are massive compared to what we expected.

Ari's first science lesson included tadpoles, sand, water and rocks.

Though we came unequipped to swim, we did it anyway as our persistent Ari kept saying "wha-wash" to ask to go swimming. The water was a bit cold but she loved it and was mad when we left.

This is Hooker Falls where there is a large sign saying "No swimming"... please note the disobey-ers.

This is High Falls (which are huge); you'll see a video at the end to show this. The parking lot was about 1/2 mile from the falls and Ashlyn did fairly well in my Moby wrap. Dan carried Ari in a baby backpack which was super heavy with her in it!

Yes she has a sucker. We had to bribe her to get in it. The first time we tried at home was a screaming disaster.

Ari doing her usual brave dip into the water. This was in a 'pool' at the bottom of the waterfall.

Check out this pic of Dan and Ari! (getting it without other people in it was difficult) Ari loved the water but the mist and the noise of the waterfall made her more hesitant. But Dan liked having her be so adventurous!

These are two (gigantic) videos we took while we were there. The above video is me describing where we were and the video below is a view of High Falls and of Ari waving! Please note the people using the rocks as water slides... crazy! (But hey, the DeGeyters jumped off rocks at Silvan Lake in SD).

We would love to go back and take all our families! It was really fun.