Off The Beaten Path

Actual Date: Saturday, July 16, 2011

After breakfast on this day we decided we wanted to do a little hiking.  For some reason when we lived we used to live in the mountains, we took them for granted.  Now when we go back to visit we appreciate just how beautiful and unique they are.

We decided to hike up this old trail that covered wagons used to travel on to take things out of the mine at the top.

  

Here's Brian and Jen taking in the view about 20 minutes into our hike.  We were bout 6,000 feet up at that point.  And look at those fools sitting right there on the edge with their feet hanging over.  No thank you.  I don't do heights. 

God invented zoom lenses for a reason.  And that reason was so that I don't have to stand on the edge to get a good picture.  

Amen.

Just a few minutes of hiking later and we were there.  Or so we thought we were.  We found out later that we were actually only at the bottom of the mine.  I was thinking we got there kind of quick because the sign on the way in said it was 4 miles to the mine.  But then when we found it I thought well, maybe it was 4 miles round trip. 

We were wrong.  As we were standing the talking about how the hike wasn't as bad as the site made it sound, a group of people went hiking by and one stopped and said "This isn't the mine,  well it is, but it's not the end of the trail.  This is the end of the mine!  The top is two more miles up."

Thanks for popping our bubble Mr.!  We thought we had made it.  

The end of the mine was licked up tight.

I'm guessing something on this sign has something to do with the reason why.  

I was really interested on what it looked like inside there.

There was water flowing out of it.  It looked like it would be fun to jump around in but I don't really want to know what was in that water.  

We decided we to continue on because we were interested to see if the top of the mine was actually open.  We headed up the mountain but the trail got really rough.  Recently they had had a lot of big storms and rock slides had washed out the trail.  It was really slippery. 

We were all slipping and at one point the trail was really bad.  It was really rocky and washed out and it was right on the edge of the cliff.  Which amazingly I was fine with as long as we were moving and I was looking straight ahead.  I WAS fine with it, until we stopped. 

We decided to turn around because the trail was starting to get a little to dangerous for my newly pregnant Sister In Law to be trudging along on.  Or that's what I tell myself.  That sounds much better than "I was to petrified to continue on."  So yeah, we were keeping the Prego safe.  

Even though I was the one hugging the mountain while trying to turn around.  We decided to turn around at the worst spot.  It was literally only enough room to put one foot in front of the other, and it was right on the edge, 6,000 feet up.  A few minutes later and a few thousand prayers later, I safely made it off of that tricky section and back on to stable ground.

Oh yeah and so did the rest of the people, in case you were wondering. 

On our way back I spotted these HUGE pine cones.  They were enormous.  I wanted one but no one would climb up there and get one for me.  Besides that, I think it might be a little illegal seeing as how we were in a State Park.

Chels, Chris and Jen halfway back down the mountain.

I have to give Chel's some credit.  She hiked that mountain in slip on Vans because that's the best hiking attire she had.  Us California girls don't very far from flip flops in the shoe department.

We probably could have done it in flip flops but we didn't want to make everyone jealous of our mad skills so, ya know.

Chris, Jen and I.

Why do I look like the pregnant one?  

When we got home we were all ready for some rest and relaxation.  I love this picture of Auntie Jen and Ava.  You are going to be such a great Mom Jen.  You're already a a great Aunt!

Ava and Parker were being goofy.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  But they had us all rolling.  They were singing the ABC's over and over in crazy voices with silly faces.  I swear they probably sang that song about 2,045 times and we laughed every single one of those times.  

And because we weren't quite convinced that they were wound up enough, we added some sugar into the mix.  

Some super sticky S'more sugar.

Did I mention,  it was sticky?