We spent the morning at the lodge, doing scavenger hunts and socializing a bit with other guests, just "chilling out" in the relative cool indoor space. But by lunchtime we were ready to do something, so we set our sights on the nearby river which we had been told was nice to swim in.
We started out in the now blazing heat, lathered in sunscreen and stocked with water and food. Oh, and a map too, but for some reason we decided not to look at it until we reached what we thought was our destination. Things didn't look like we expected, specifically there was no obvious access to the river from the bridge we were standing on. A quick check of the map revealed that we were at the wrong bridge. Ooops.
This information was not well received by the kids, but we managed to convince them that we were "almost there" and on we trudged. It turned out to be one of those fortunate mistakes, because our recovery led us through an interesting neighborhood of cute chalets tucked into the trees. About ten minutes later, I found a path that led down to the stream just above a beautiful swimming hole.
At that point I realized that I did not bring my crummy sneakers that I had lugged all over the country. I had no intention of walking in the water in my brand new walking sneakers, so the stream time was not as wonderful for me as it was for the girls. But on the whole I would say that we all enjoyed chilling in the clear cool mountain stream...for a while.
After eating lunch, Jana and the kids decided to move downstream to a different spot. As I mentioned, this was difficult for me because I had to go barefoot which was quite painful due to my foot problem. Standing in the stream trying to navigate the slippery rocks, I happened to look upstream and noticed that the outlines of two big excavating machines were no longer idle but had started moving. I watched as the big arms moved up and down and I could hear the sound of earth crunching and crashing. Sure enough, within five minutes the river had turned from crystal clear to earthy brown. What a bummer!
So that kind of put a damper on the enthusiasm for sitting in the stream! Combined with the menacing clouds, we felt that it was time to pack it in. We gathered our things and headed downstream along another path we had discovered.
The new path led back to the first bridge, where lo and behold we discovered the other family from the lodge playing among the rocks. We stopped to see what they were up to and before long the kids and adults were engrossed in building little dams to divert the flow of water across a series of concrete erosion barriers. A short time later, the skies opened up and it poured, but were were totally protected by the highway bridge above our heads. So we watched the rainstorm and worked on our dams for another hour or so, and soon it was time to think about dinner.
First Jana left, then the other family, but the girls had become so involved in a game of competing rock-crushing businesses that they didn't want to leave! I got them to agree to walk back by carrying a bunch of their special rocks back to the lodge. Once we got to the road, I regretted making this deal, but of course I kept my word and now we have a bunch of rocks on the back porch waiting to be played with.
Today we expect another slow and easy day.
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