4th of July Hike on Labor Day

It was a busy weekend, good, but busy. So this morning we decided to sneak in a hike to have some family time together. We chose the 4th of July trail to hike. I hadn’t been there since high school and I’m glad we went back. Unfortunately, our timing was pretty off. With the kids tired from their weekend and Tabby fighting a cold, the hike was long and whiny. This photo pretty much sums it up. Ben, in the backpack, was pretty low maintenance (but poor Matt, carrying almost 40 extra lbs!) and Tabby was miserable most of the time.

The hike itself is 2.5 miles in, 5 mi roundtrip and not really hard or much different than what we regularly do.

It is dotted by several pretty waterfalls and a few water crossings.

And it ends at Diamond Lake where we ate our lunch … before storm clouds rolled in and started threatening rain. Or sleet. We tried to take regular breaks, but the breaks, besides prolonging the hike, really didn’t seem to help. Tabby was best when she was chatting with us about this and that and had her mind off things.

Still, it wasn’t all bad. There were some flowers found along the way.

And some smiles too. And the mini Oreos we ate on the way home were a huge hit.

Can’t win ’em all, I guess!