Mother Nature's slip 'n slide

Remember our trip here last year? Well, we went again this year. So. Much. Dang. Fun. Seriously. If you want to have a good time, get on up here. My good friend, Loni and I took the kiddos up on a Thursday; a weekday. (Remember how I said that was the way to go?) Because of budget cuts and mandatory furlough days, we were able to enjoy a day off when the rest of the state was in school. Boo-ya!

We practically had the place to ourselves. There was only one other large-ish group there, but they had to leave early because one in their crowd fell and split her chin open. Them rocks are slippery. Poor girl. We all felt so bad for her.
Anyways, because it was September, all the swim/summer stuff was on clearance. We made a stop at a local store in the hopes of scoring some goggles, but to my dismay they were all gone. The only things they had left were beach towels, plastic goblets with fish on them, and two Nemo floatie pad thingies with big eyes. While I was sorely tempted to buy the plastic fish goblets, I showed restraint and bought the Nemo floaties. In hindsight, that was the best 4 bucks I have ever spent in my entire life. We used those up! Who knew you could fly down the face of a rock on top of Nemo and have so much fun grinding your legs to hamburger in an attempt to stop/slow yourself down? Oh wait. That was only me. Mine were the only legs that looked like you could grill them up and slap some mayo on them and call them tasty. And not in a good way. Imagine dragging an unwilling cow across a bumpy sheet of ice. Now put my face on the cow.
What? So my skills are not all encompassing. It's better that you find out now.

See Roo holding up Nemo? He is now our best friend and is sitting in a special place in our shed under all the life jackets and summer junk waiting for next year's trip.

You probably will want to wear shoes while visiting this place. It is not mandatory, but it helps with traction when sliding down the rocks on Nemo's body. And you get some cool tan lines if your straps are right.

The kids told me to hold on to Nemo's tail in the back when I slid so that I could gain speed on the way down. What they (and consequently, I) did not realize is that because I weigh more than they do, the speed thing would not be a problem I would have to deal with. Also, did you know that objects that have more mass tend to go farther on wet, slippery surfaces? This is a scientific fact. One that was made literally painfully clear when my turn came around. The kids would stop on their own a few feet from the tiny waterfall at the end of the slip 'n slide whereas I, using my legs and arms as engine breaks to try to slow down, (insert image of unwilling cow) zoomed past that point and well beyond, shooting off the edge of the rock and into the shallow pool at the end of the slide. It was a little scary at first but then became a game to see who could get there the fastest. I won every time. The kids never even had a chance. See? There are benefits to owning a few extra L B's.

Loni's Ben was amazing! He was naturally very apprehensive to go down, but once was all it took to get him hooked. He went again and again and again.

I thought I had made my warning clear last year when I said to wear tough toosh gear. Oh well. At least he got to wear them to school one time.

This is one of those photos you just had to be there for. Mr. Squirrel had been stalking us all day. He was intent on eating our picnic. At times I would see one or more of the kids running full speed back to our picnic spot. I thought they were just running back and forth because it was fun. Nope. They had each made a pact to be on Squirrel Duty. The little bugger kept stealing snitches of our food and the kids would take turns running back and forth to scare him off. Loni and I never even had a clue.

All in all we had an amazing time. I can't wait to go back next year. If we had cell service and were able to call home, we totally would have camped out there that night, but you know. We didn't want our hubbies to worry about us. Well, that and we didn't have a tent, blankets, food. But we did have a couple of pieces of bread. Maybe we could have used it as bait for Mr. Squirrel. After eating our PB&J sammies, he would have already been flavored.