Picnic at Big Hill Springs Park

Allen has some  clients he really enjoys visiting with - the Nymans. I've talked to them on the phone when they're looking for Allen, but hadn't met them until today. They'd talked for years about getting together for a picnic. Today we finally did it.

We headed out to Big Hill Springs Park. I thought it was rather far to go just for a picnic - but it turned out to be well worth the drive.



The springs are unbelievably refreshing and beautiful.



They have some really cool rocks there called 'tufa'. In all the Rocks and Minerals reading I've done for Gr. 3 science I'd never heard of these rocks! They're very cool.



And they look amazing!



We went on a little hike around the park. Unfortunately, I was wearing sandals and so by the end my ankles were KILLING me! Apparently they're not the best shoes for hiking. It was nice to add some more km's to my running total for this month though.

Peirce was sure he wanted to go with us today. He didn't know these people and there wouldn't be any kids there - sounded totally boring. Just like mean parents though, we made him go. ...And surprise! He had a really great time. He got on his bike and went exploring, built dams in the water with other kids there, climbed on rocks, crossed over streams on logs, and had a wonderful time exploring. He couldn't wipe the smile off his face. He was pretty sleepy on the way home though!

Luckily, mosquito bites kept him awake. I think we got about a million bites. We had bug spray but they seem to have some gigantic bug spray proof killer mosquitoes there that like to attack you 3 or 4 at a time. That was what finally drove us to our  vehicle and caused us to drive away. Otherwise we would have stayed a lot longer!