Our 4th day of camping was just more of the same...golfing, games, eating, reading and relaxing.
The kids love to bring their money with them and go up to the little store at the campground and buy stuff. Owen got one of the king sized drumsticks and he was a happy guy!
On our fifth and last full day we were supposed to be spending it with friends who live just a bit north of Ephrata, but unfortunately it didn't work out. So instead we were determined to get a hike in somewhere.
We ended up driving to Quincy and just outside town there is a trail called Ancient Lakes.
Driving down toward the Columbia Gorge was so beautiful!
On the trail we found a painted rock!
The weather was supposed to be only about 63 degrees which we figured would be perfect.
Look at these huge rock cliffs.
We couldn't have asked for a nicer day. And truly it wasn't hot. Michael did read that almost no one hikes this trail in July & August....it's just too hot! The majority of people that hike it do so in April and November.
The clouds were so pretty!
I found this huge dandelion!
I had Ella hold it up so you could really see how huge it was. It was almost as big as her head!
Unfortunately our sweet girl was not feeling the best this day. She had a headache and was sick to her tummy. She wanted to go back to the truck, but it was about the same distance to keep going as it was to turn around. Also sitting in the truck wasn't going to make her feel any better, but maybe walking around and seeing nature would help get her mind off it.
Right after I took this panoramic picture Ella bent over and puked. This is just what happens when she gets a headache. She has to puke and get it over with. We waited for a bit and let her relax and then we continued on.
We finally actually saw some lakes.
The water was the prettiest shade of turquoise!
Of course if there's a tree Zeke will climb it!
This lake was surrounded by tons of frogs....good sized ones too. It was so funny we'd just be walking along and then you hear this grumble like "Meh" and then a frog would jump in the water and disappear. It was so funny!
While we were checking out the lake Ella sat on a rock to rest a bit. After this we started the trek back. According to Google Maps this was a loop. I asked the kids if they wanted to go out the way we came or do the actual loop and go on a different part of the trail. It was same distance so it didn't really matter. We decided to go on the part of the trail we hadn't gone on yet.
Well, evidentially that part of the trail isn't used much....I guess most people just come in and then go back out the way they came in. Also it wasn't helping that Google was having a hard time finding exactly where we were. The nice thing was because we were in a valley we could see where we needed to go by looking at the rock formations. We knew we were headed in the right direction. Michael did have us cut across a field a couple of times trying to get us on the right trail. The only annoying thing about that was all those sticky weed things that get stuck to your socks. We all had to pick those out of our socks before continuing on.
The nice part was by this point in the trip Ella was feeling great. She really turned a corner after puking and didn't have any issues the rest of the day. Finally after a couple course corrections we were on the right trail and we got back to the truck. What Michael had thought would be about 2.5 miles ended up being 5.4 miles. We did say we wanted to go on a nice hike and it was a nice hike. The funniest part was listening to Owen who kept informing us that going off the trail was how people ended up dead. That kid is hilarious! We did tell him that in most cases that would be true especially in the woods, but since we were in the dessert and could literally see the rock formation that the truck was parked next to he had no need to fear!
The next day was our pack up and head home day which I never ever take any pictures of. First camping trip of 2023 was in the books!
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