Beacon Rock - Memorial Day 2012

Last year for Memorial Day, we went on a beautiful nature walk/hike at Moulton Falls with a couple other families... Picnic lunch, friends, gorgeous scenery and a waterfall/bridge toward the end of the trail. Great day! This year, I suggested we do something similar - maybe even go to the same place. I was overruled. Beacon Rock was suggested and, in the end, that's where we went.

Beacon Rock is NOT a nature walk.

I repeat, NOT a nature walk.

It is uphill. ALL. The. Stinkin'. Way.

Not what we thought we were getting ourselves into. My triple-O body (1. Old [I just had my 30th birthday - more on that later!] 2. Overweight 3. Out-of-shape [I can't change the first one, but I'm working to remedy the last two!]) was yelling at me the whole way up! But I made it!

The view, 3/4 of the way up.

 Partial view of the waterfall, looking up from a footbridge. The footbridge had lots of names and initials carved into the railing and we found one that was "J [heart] S" and I forgot to take a picture!

 Ignore my beet-red face!

 LOVE this picture of my boys!

 View from near the top of the waterfall, looking down at the footbridge.

At the top there was this really cool pool of water, almost completely enclosed, that is called the Pool of Winds. The mist from the falling water sprays off the rocks and it is so calming. Hard to describe. But I totally closed my eyes and had a bit of a Titanic "I'm flying!" moment.

In front of the Pool of Winds. Ignore the awkwardness of me holding Ethan on my knee.

Colemans.

 Olsons.

 The Dahls were with us, too, but I didn't get a family picture of them.

 Ethan and Maddy sitting on a bench on the way down. Gotta love Ethan's cheesy grin!

 Looking at Hamilton Mountain - Sean climbed clear to the top of it with his Scouts and another leader a while ago.

After the hike and letting all the kids play at the playground (we had 12 kids all together!) and then our family raced home to take showers and de-stink-ify ourselves to go over to another family's house for a BBQ dinner (no pictures... I was beat!) and games. It was the perfect relaxing evening after a long afternoon of hiking.