Gordon Creek Waterfalls

Today we finally went to the Gordon Creek Waterfalls! This is one of those adventures we have talked about repeatedly and then we never do it. They are only about 15 miles away from our house but we weren't sure how to find them. Last weekend Tyson, Drake and Zac went out to search for the waterfalls and hiked a very long ways and still couldn't find them. When they were almost back to their car they talked to another person who was in the area and they were pointed in the right direction. But, they had already hiked a long ways and Drake had encountered a few cacti along the way so they thought they'd better save it for another day. So today we ventured out again as a family and had much better success. The waterfalls were so much fun! In the pictures they look rather dangerous, but they were really quite safe, so the kids could play in them and even their paranoid mom wasn't too concerned!

Zac was able to catch a lizard on the rocks near the stream and he was one happy boy! In his opinion, the success of an outing is usually determined by whether or not he was able to catch something creepy and crawly!

After we (you know....the kids!) played in the water of the lower falls for awhile we continued following the river until we came to the upper falls. The kids immediately charged into the water only to find that the mud was really deep and their shoes got sucked right off! Garrett lost his sandal but his sweet big sister spent several minutes digging through the mud and found it. The kids loved rolling around in the mud! It was so cute and the whole time I'm just thinking "I forgot to put the towels in the car!" Oops!

After they had played in the mud for awhile we went back down to the lower falls to clean off before hiking back to the car because the water in the lower spring was a lot cleaner, even if it doesn't look like it. There was no way they were going to get cleaned up in that muddy pool at the upper falls! At one point during the afternoon the kids started calling each other their Muddy Buddies so we decided to make some Muddy Buddies for a snack when we got home! Yum!