Day-cation

School is quickly approaching and there were just a few little day trips we wanted to take before the kids were back in school. I must say, I'm pretty proud of us for getting through the "summer activity to do" list that we made at the beginning of the summer. We have been crazy busy this summer but we have had a ton of varied experiences and I don't think the kids can say they have been bored at all! Today, we took a day-cation to a state park near our house....the main agenda item was to try out our new inflatable kayak. We had SUCH a GREAT time paddling around the river. It was overall pretty peaceful and way beautiful.  No pics of us in the kayak though...we didn't know how wet we would end up so we didn't want to risk our camera.  Very happy to report there were no overboards. The view from the river was so serene and the water snake bobbing his head in the water couldn't ruin my good time.   After kayaking, we climbed around on the rocks.  Since the state park is focused on the history of the Oregon trail, we headed over to check out the historical significance of the area as well.  My pictures uploaded in some wonky order, so excuse the disorganization.  It will not fix it and I have wasted too much time trying to get things lined up!

Climbing up a steep rock



Can you imagine crossing this in a covered wagon? 
Over 500,000 American pioneers did. 

 area of the river we were paddling. 
Across the river is "River Joe's
winter cabin"

The sunflowers this year are just amazing!

The historical aspect of this park is really amazing to me.  The journey of the American pioneer always has intrigued me.  Now that I am a mom and find long car trips with three children to be challenging in the respect of how do I entertain/feed/prevent sickness/manage diaper blow outs/schedule pit stops/etc, I have even more respect for these courageous people.  I mean, can you imagine a 5 month trip in a wagon where you actually have to cook, do laundry, find your own water, hunt your own food, and protect your family from all sorts of dangers?   I cannot.  I guess that is why I found these rocks acknowledging that people truly did make the journey successfully really neat. 

And, to prove that I would make a horrible pioneer, I saw a snake in the grass (two snakes in one day is way too much for this girl!).  What did I do??? Run off screaming and leave my children near the snake.  So much for me trying not to pass on my fear of snakes to my kids.  In my defense, the hubby was near the kids and could have saved them if needed.  

Register rock showcases signatures of many of the pioneers
who made it to this point in their journey to
 Oregon, Washington, or California

If you can read this, it explains the following pictures. 

Signature of 7yr old who drew the Indian head in picture.
Yeah, I know it's sideways.  Blogger is not cooperating!

Indian head sketched into rock by 7 yr old