Today we got moving earlier to get to Minniehaha Falls while it wasn’t too hot. We were out the door around 10 am and headed to the falls. We still had to drive around the whole lake to get there but this time there was no construction and we spent time looking at all the beautiful (and huge) houses—each unique to the area of the mountain they were on.
We found the trailhead and proceeded to the falls. We had looked it up the night before and it was a short hike (.4 miles to the falls). We hiked up the mountain just a little ways and it erupted onto a 100-ft or so waterfall. The majesty was amazing! Keith wanted to visit Minniehaha Falls because he did with his family when he was the girls age and loved it. We all climbed the falls and played in the pools at the bottom. We were lucky to have a few minutes to ourselves before others started visiting the falls. On our way down we found a little offshoot of a creek with sand and stones where Elsa and I built a dam to redirect the water and Anna created a stone tower.
After our hike we found our way back around the lake, looking at the houses again along the way noticing how the houses on the lake were different from those up the hill. We headed to Walmart to find tubes for the river at our campsite, hit another huge rainstorm, and got back to our campsite in the rain. We played Skip-bo and snacked until the storm passed and then blew up the armchairs, I had to try to tube down the river.
Tubing was a disaster. The armchair floats broke. It was a little too scary for Anna and I ended up carrying her on my back up the river while Keith and Elsa went a little farther. After many bumps and harrowing events, we finally ended up on land and walked straight to the pool in drizzling rain.
Things we did:
- Hiked to Minniehaha Falls (with Goat Dog)
- Climbed Minniehaha Falls
- Played in the river below Minniehaha
- Built a stone castle
- Built a dam
- Went to Walmart (I’m happy to see more people wearing masks here in the south than before—I guess this could be because of the switch in research but there is a much greater amount of people wearing masks in the stores I have been in across the country in the last couple days)
- Drove through a thunderstorm, ran inside the camper, and then sat through the same rainstorm we had just drove through
- Played Skip-bo
- Blew up armchair floaties (Walmart was out of tubes)
- Headed down the river on said floaties
- Regretted the decision of using these floaties
- Walked the river with a 6-year-old on my back and Anna also worked hard to jump across some rocks
- Elsa and Keith “tubed” down the rocky river
- Walked up to the pool to make sure all the river was off of us and clean out any scrapes
- Anna is officially swimming dangerous—she can lift her head to breathe now and is obviously more/too confident
- Ran back to the camper in our bathing suits (and it felt cold!!!)
- Snuggled in our new towels from Walmart and took showers (because we won’t have water the next 4 nights!!)
- Made dinner (Turkey bacon, lettuce & mayo sandwiches!)
- Had some gelato and Oreos for dessert I had picked up at Walmart
- Broke the handle to our refrigerator (luckily it still clicks closed…for now)—I knew the minute I opened the fridge the first time that it wasn’t going to last long.Since there is no lounging in the day, we’ve started to go to bed at the same time as the girls because you can lounge in bed. There was also no internet.
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Oh my gosh, it is still gorgeous! Such a great payoff for a short hike. And all to yourself for awhile!!!
Yes. We were so pleased. 🙂
It’s still gorgeous! Glad you made it and had it to yourselves! It is so neat to be able to play in a waterfall —just like you see in the movies!!
Who? *looks side to side*
Some of the best free fun in the world! Right at your doorstep (sort of).
But who climbs waterfalls in flip-flops?? I don’t know who would do that–or do I.
You can’t make a waterpark that cool. Love these waterfall pics. What an adventure!