Big Day in the Park

Today was our only full day in the park.  One of the best things about the park is the hiking trails.  We decided to try to tackle one of them as a family.  We chose Devil's Den Trail.  It's the most popular trail due to having such a wide array of things to see, although the cave is now closed due to white nose syndrome, which is sadly killing these bats and many others across the country.  But we saw the waterfall, which Clara liked to feel the water falling on her hand, as well as some other beautiful natural features.  They say they don't use guardrails and warning signs on the trail to preserve the beauty, but as a result some places were pretty dangerous, but we held onto the kids to keep them safe.  It was a pretty strenuous trail for the kids, and therefore for us, so we took a welcome rest when we returned to the car.  We then went to the picnic grounds for a nice picnic lunch.

After the kids started their naps, I decided I wanted to try trail running.  I chose a different trail, Yellow Rock Trail, and ran it.  It was less dangerous and more wooded, which made for a great running trail.  It's famous for having impressive geological features as well as Yellow Rock, which is an outlook point.  It's flat and is a great place to look way out into the distance, but you'd also plummet to your death if you fell off.  I made sure not to get too close, even though it looks like I'm closer to the edge than I really am in this shot (my mom is probably nearly fainting while looking at that picture).

We finished the day with a grilled dinner on our outdoor table, s'mores for everyone, and then bedtime for the kids.  One weird thing about this cabin is the beds are extremely and weirdly tall.  So I made a bed last night on the floor for each of the two older kids in their rooms to eliminate any risk of injury due to falling/climbing out of bed.  It was a really big day today, but it was very fulfilling, and I think we made the most of our main day here.